Trip Report 5 day Orlando Speedrun!

Hi everyone,

Longtime lurker of Trip Reports and these boards in general! For years I have thought about doing a Trip Report and am finally going to give it a go

A bit about me... I'm Emma, from the UK and travelled with my husband Steve. Growing up, I was very lucky to visit Disney every 2 years or so with my family, so it's always been a very special place for me. Our last trip was with a group of 10 of us back in 2017. We had trips booked for April 2020, and then April 2021, but we all know what happened then...!

I have been trying desperately to get back to Disney (5 years is the longest I've ever gone without a visit!) but as I am a teacher, I am stuck by school holidays and it's been tricky to find a time. My husband and I like to travel, and each summer we usually do a big trip- 2019, for example, we did Japan, 2018 we did New Zealand and so on. Well with COVID, we obviously hadn't been able to go too far, so decided that this summer we'd do a really big trip to make up for the lost time. The original plan was Bali, New Zealand and Australia. I jokingly kept asking about popping Orlando in there somewhere- and then, by some miracle, my husband found some flights from the UK to Orlando that would be much cheaper than the original plan. He went into full on planning mode and in the end, our entire adventure looked like this- Orlando to Tahiti to New Zealand to Australia to home!

Being from the UK, we usually visited for 2-3 weeks and did all of Orlando- Disney, Universal, SeaWorld, shopping days, International Drive, beach days, Busch Gardens- we'd do it all. So, having just 5 days was definitely a challenge I was excited for! We booked everything with literally about a month to go, and as soon as I could I got the park reservations, dining reservations sorted etc. We were mega lucky and managed to get everything we wanted, including a night at California Grill for our 8th wedding anniversary

We had the most wonderful 5 days in Orlando to kick start our holiday and I am really pleased to say, despite being a bit wary of how Disney may have changed in the 5 years since I'd last been, it really was as special as I'd hoped it would be. I hope you enjoy reading about our trip!

 

[Tuvalu]

Chocolate covered bacon is now a “thing.”

Not my thing though.

 

[rubydoo2]

Chocolate covered bacon is now a “thing.”

Not my thing though.

We stood and looked at it for quite a long time I couldn't quite comprehend it! We were not tempted to try it!

 

[rubydoo2]

Day 5- Epcot and Anniversary Dinner

Already, we had reached our last full day The trip went so quickly but we had packed so much in! The plan for today was to head to Epcot, and then we had a special dinner planned for our 8th wedding anniversary.

We got up at 7am to attempt a boarding group for Guardians of the Galaxy. Steve was not a fan of the fuss that was required to ride one ride! We went for 2 different methods, I was going to press refresh and be on the Wifi, Steve was going to pull down the screen and be on data. I was the lucky one and got...

Woohoo! With that stress out the way, we lazed for a bit and left the room at about 8.30am.

Firstly I had something I wanted us to do... Steve was ecstatic about it. I wanted Anniversary badges! He wore his for a few hours, albeit under duress

We decided to get breakfast in Epcot, and after having a quick look in the Connections cafe, we decided to head over to the France pavilion. We were absolutely not the only ones to have this idea... it was packed in the bakery!

As tempted as we were by these delicious treats, we tried to be half way sensible and had some croissants and bread. It was a nice chilled start to the day

After this we decided to have a go at Remy. The queue time was posted as 40 minutes, and we waited 40 minutes exactly! I thought it was a cute little ride, I enjoyed it!

We then started to journey around the countries. We headed to Japan and I had an amazing teriyaki steamed bun from the Food Stall there, it was properly delicious, I could've probably eaten about 5 of them in one go Japan was the last place we went on holiday before COVID shut the world down, so we enjoyed seeing some things we were familiar with, like a Torii gate!

We absolutely loved Japan- we would recommend it to anyone. If you've ever considered going, do it!

Steve got a "spicy githeri" from the Africa stall and he said it was one of the best vegan things he'd ever tried, high praise!

After this we went over to the China pavillion to watch Reflections of China. Fun story- we got engaged in DisneyWorld in 2012, and watched this film on the trip and decided we wanted to go to China on our honeymoon. We did indeed end up going to China and it was such an amazing trip. This film was the inspiration for it, so we felt quite nostalgic watching it!

At this point we decided we'd head over and try Test Track. Now, I was fairly certain I hadn't ridden Test Track in about 10 years and it genuinely seemed to be broken down every single time I had tried it, haha. The posted wait time was 80 minutes, but we had time to kill before Guardians so we thought we may as well try it out. And guess what... it went down whilst we waited We decided we'd stick it out. We ended up making the most ridiculous car...

And after a 10 year wait, I have to say... I wouldn't queue for this again. Not for even 10 minutes. We thought it was rubbish

When we got off the ride, I had this notification... (notice the phone background- it'll make sense shortly...!)

Off we went. We waited about 40 minutes in the line. I especially enjoyed the Terry Crews moments, we are big Brooklyn 99 fans We got Conga as our song which was brilliant! The ride was so smooth, we were really impressed by it and can see why everyone loves it so much!

After this we went and had a snack break and the Connections cafe and decided to go and see the manatees. Now, manatees... they are my favourite animal in the world. Don't ask me why I just love them. (Hence my phone background!) They are so big and slow and cute and I think they're the best. And obviously, we don't have any manatees in the UK so I was very excited to see real ones up close! We spent quite a long time watching them, probably slightly longer than I'd like to admit

The face of someone who is very happy to see a manatee!!

It started to absolutely tip it down with rain at this point, but we knew we'd be leaving the park quite soon to get ready for our dinner that evening. We decided to get one more thing each from the Food Festival- Steve got the meatballs from Earth Eats, and I got some dandan noodles from the China pavillion. We happily ate our food as we had a very soggy walk back to the bus to get ready for the evening and something I had wanted to do for a very, very long time...

 

[rubydoo2]

Day 5 continued- Anniversary Dinner

This evening was our 8th wedding anniversary and, despite only booking this trip with less than a month to go, Steve had managed to get a reservation at a place I had never been before but have always desperately wanted to go to. Especially during COVID, reading about watching the fireworks from here made it something I thought would be amazing, but genuinely felt like I might never get to do. You've probably guessed it...!

Walking up to the server station and being seated I was so excited! I couldn't believe we were actually getting to do it. Our reservation was for 9.20pm, but we knew that if we arrived early we could watch the fireworks, so we arrived in good time and headed straight out onto the observation deck. This view was breathtaking, for a first timer like me seeing it!

I tried really hard to watch the fireworks with my eyes and not my phone, and so resisted taking loads of videos and photos. I know you've all seen photos of fireworks before but, I can't resist a few...!

I am not ashamed to admit that there were a few tears shed! I would imagine my fellow Brit visitors will understand but it really did feel, for a long time, like we might never get back to the USA and finishing off our amazing 5 day trip with these fireworks was just the most perfect ending to our trip.

Very happy indeed!

We went inside when the fireworks ended and got going with our meal. The server was absolutely lovely and kept us well fed!

This steak was genuinely, I think, the best steak I've ever had in my life... there was a lot of stopping after each bite and saying "oh my god this is good"!

We had a window seat so I could watch the Magic Kingdom over Steve's shoulder. It was so beautiful! We got given a cake as an anniversary treat...

...but we really couldn't finish it. We were stuffed! I think it was after 11pm when we finally left the restaurant and I can 100% say it lived up to my expectations. I really hope I'll be able to return again in the future!

 

[cgersic]

What a lovely end to an amazing trip!! Happy Anniversary and it's so sweet that your husband wore his pin with pride

 

[MagicalMaci]

What an amazing trip! I love just how genuinely happy you both look and can feel the excitement of the adventure y'all had. Happy anniversary, a perfect way to celebrate!!

 

[rubydoo2]

What a lovely end to an amazing trip!! Happy Anniversary and it's so sweet that your husband wore his pin with pride

Thank you! And, he took some convincing but he did it in the end

What an amazing trip! I love just how genuinely happy you both look and can feel the excitement of the adventure y'all had. Happy anniversary, a perfect way to celebrate!!

Thank you! We had the best 5 days

 

[rubydoo2]

The rest of the trip!

When I first posted, people were keen to hear about the other places we ventured too. So, here goes...

Our first stop after Orlando was Tahiti in French Polynesia!

We flew from Orlando to San Francisco, and then San Francisco to Tahiti. The flight across the US from Orlando to America was quite eventful... there were lightning storms all over the place and we basically spent the entire journey turning left to right to avoid the storms. It was a mixture between being really, really cool to watch from the plane window, and also being absolutely terrifying

I took some videos of the lightning but the videos really didn't do it justice. Here's a screenshot that kind of shows it, the sky was filled with lots of clusters of clouds all lit up like this!

We landed in Tahiti at about 8pm and headed to our hotel. The hotel was called Te Moana,so a nice little Disney link to continue the holiday!

We sat on this beach area and had a drink before heading to bed. We had a very early start (again!) so off to bed.

The reason we got up early was to catch the first ferry of the day from Tahiti to Moorea, another island. On this island we were going to be doing a whale watching tour, where we could, if we were lucky enough, end up swimming with whales in the open ocean!

We drove across Moorea and then arrived onto our boat. Moorea was beautiful!

It was a small tour, there was 8 of us in total. The first place we went out to was a lagoon with stingrays and reef sharks. We snorkelled here for a bit and it was awesome being in the water with the animals!

After about 30 minutes swimming here, we hopped back into the boat and started our journey to hunt for whales. We were told that there was a chance we wouldn't find any, which we understood as you can't force nature, but we were hopeful!

We drove around the island for about 40 minutes looking for any signs of whales breaching. I was terrible at this and couldn't see a thing but the others on the boat were much better (when they weren't being sick... it was quite choppy and Steve and I were really glad we'd taken motion sickness tablets that morning...!)

On the boat journey we saw a pod of dolphins, they came right up to the boat and swam along with us for a while!

Eventually the crew spotted some and decided it was time to go in! There are laws that prohibit you having your boat within 100m of the whales, so you have to leave the boat and swim towards the whales. This was TOUGH going in very choppy seas, and also quite scary knowing you were just in open water! Our guide had a bodyboard with him and you better believe I held on to that for dear life The first hunt was a bust...we couldn't find them. So, back onto the boat we went to carry on searching. After another short while, they spotted 2 whales and back into the water we went.

This was so surreal... the guide said "The whales are right beneath us". He could see them as he's used to them but all I could see was black... it was scary knowing there were these massive creatures right beneath us but we couldn't see them! Made me wonder what else was down there!

Anyway... we then got so incredibly lucky. 2 humpback whales came up the surface literally right in front of us. It was one of the most amazing, surreal things I've ever seen in my whole life. They came up past us, breached above the surface, and then dove back down. I am not ashamed to admit I got a bit emotional, it was just incredible to see so close up! Here were the 2 whales... picture from my husband's GoPro!

We realised that was as good as it was going to get and headed back onto the boat to go back to shore. Definitely a morning well spent!

We headed back to the ferry for 1pm and we were back in Tahiti soon after. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging at the infinity pool in our hotel...

We had a lovely dinner in the hotel restaurant, then hung out at the beach bar again for the evening. It was such a nice, relaxing evening, a great contrast to the madness we'd just had with the 5 days in Disney!

And then we went to bed as we had another early start (you'll notice this theme...!) to fly to our favourite place in the world. New Zealand was up next!

 

[rubydoo2]

New Zealand

From Tahiti we flew to Auckland for 7 days in New Zealand. I don't think I can accurately sum up in a post how much we love New Zealand. We went back in 2018 and did a full, 3 week tour of both islands. We have been wanting to go back ever since but obviously, their COVID rules were much stricter than ours and we weren't sure we'd actually be able to visit this year. Luckily we were able to- we were actually in the country when the boarders reopened to the whole world, it was big news!

Our first 2 days were in a town called Rotorua. I LOVE Rotorua, and I'm not really sure why haha. It centers around Lake Rotorua, which is a natural hot spring, and honestly? The entire town stinks of sulphur. But it adds to the charm We drove from Auckland down to Rotorua straight away, its about a 2 and a half hour drive. After we got out of Auckland and onto the more country roads, this happened...

It felt like a sign from the universe- how beautiful it was, how representative of what New Zealand meant to us. We were both very, very happy to be back!

Once we got to Rotorua, it was the evening and we only had one thing planned- to visit the Polynesian Spa. We went to this before in 2018 and it is an amazing experience- it's a series of hot pools and springs, looking out over Lake Rotorua. We lounged for a few hours and just relaxed (it was nice to be at a slower pace than the Disney portion of the trip!). This was the view from one of the hot pools:

After that we headed back to the hotel and had an amazing nights sleep!

The next morning we ventured to a Redwood Treetop Walk. We only discovered it existed in the morning and thought we'd go along and see what it was about- and it was about 1000 times better than we both expected. It sounds so simple, walking over suspension bridges between trees, but it was so serene and peaceful. At this point I remember feeling real, genuine happiness and a complete sense of calm- as sopey as that might sound!

After this we headed to the Rotorua Skyline to go on the Luge. If you've never heard of the luge... it is SO MUCH FUN. It's basically a little go kart type thing that you go down different tracks etc. Me and Steve are huge Formula 1 fans and we definitely enjoyed pretending to be Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton

If you're even in NZ and you are near a Luge, we cannot recommend it enough!
Look how much I was enjoying myself...

Best picture of the entire trip!!

After Luging, we went into town for dinner and went to Nandos. Now, we have Nandos everywhere in the UK- I'm not sure there are any in the US? Either way, we're 100% the sort of people that travel across the globe and eat at a restaurant we could eat at every week at home and we are unashamed about it!

We had some down time at Lake Rotorua... (notice our clothes... a very different climate from Florida!)

Then, in the evening, we went back to the TreeTop walk. They do a nighttime version, where the trees are all lit up and there are lanterns etc. Teamed with the amazing stars and the lack of light pollution in New Zealand, it was so beautiful.

That inspired us to go on abit of a Stargazing tour and we ended up driving out of the town and up a valley. It was the clearest night sky we'd ever seen in our lives, we could literally see the MilkyWay above us. I keep saying things are beautiful but it's true! It was really quite breath-taking, we sat and just starred for a really long time. It was the perfect way to end our first full day back in New Zealand!

Coming up... our trip to Hobbiton and the rest of NZ!