We are so excited to report that we were fortunate enough to just enjoy our 8th trip to Walt Disney World! And as always it was a beyond perfect, magical vacation! We really wanted to share it with all our friends here on WDWMagic.com! We actually have been back for a month now (you know how busy life can be after coming back to reality) and we just haven’t had time to post our trip report.
We were there for 10 days, February 25th – March 6th. Our group was my wife and I and my twin brother and his wife. I will post a condensed trip recap below and if anyone wants to read more in depth, I’ll post a day by day report below that. Enjoy!
Day 1 – Travel from Cape Cod Massachusetts to Orlando Florida / Downtown Disney Day 2 – Magic Kingdom Day 3 – Day Off Day 4 – Epcot Day 5 – Animal Kingdom / Magic Kingdom Day 6 – Day Off / Universal Islands of Adventure (to check out Harry Potter) Day 7 – Disney’s Hollywood Studios Day 8 – Epcot Day 9 – Disney’s Hollywood Studios / Magic Kingdom Day 10 – Magic Kingdom / Travel home to Cape Cod
Total attractions tally = 115 Total time spent in parks = 91.5 hours Total attractions that broke down = 5 Total new or enhanced attractions experienced = 11 Total pictures taken = 682 (what can I say, I had a brand new camera) Total video clips taken = 150 Total burgers eaten = 17 Total hotdogs eaten = 7 Total slices of pizza eaten = 48 Total salads eaten = 20 Total pieces of fruit eaten = 12 Total ice cream eaten = 14 (Not to mention all the fries, pretzels, popcorn, turkey legs, bakery goods, chicken and soda)
I will post a day by day trip report below. In the meantime, here is a picture of us! Enjoy!
I love the fact you broke down everything number wise. I always wonder just how much we consume, and yet at the same time don't want to think about it. But its really cool that you did it. From the smiles I would say you guys had a fabulous time...
DAY #1 - Friday February 25th 2011 "Travel to Florida"
We couldn’t believe it was time to go back to Walt Disney World! The day had finally arrived! Disney World, here we come!
Let me introduce you to our group. There's me (Jeff), my wife Carisa, my twin brother Dan, and his wife Faith. The four of us are a VERY close group and do everything together.
Dan and Faith slept over our house the night before. It was really fun to have a sleepover the night before. We were so excited while we were doing last minute packing! We had to force ourselves to go to bed…..well more like a long nap, because we were getting up in just a few hours.
Woke up at 3:00am. We ran around the house with smiles on our faces singing “Now Is The Time” from Carousel of Progress. Just dreaming of what fun lay ahead of us was making our heads spin.
Drove to Boston’s Logan airport in 35 degree rainy weather.
Landed in Orlando to 85 degree sunny weather……that’s MUCH better!
Got our rental car. Picked out a Chevy HHR and named it “People Mover III”.
Drove to our hotel with the windows down, smelled the Florida air, and admired those beautiful palm trees!
Checked in, unpacked, bought groceries, and had lunch on International Drive.
We could see Hogwarts Castle from our hotel balcony….very cool!
Headed out to Downtown Disney! Felt good to be back on Disney soil!
Had reservations at T-Rex restaurant. Never been there before, it was so awesome! The meteor showers every 20 min were so cool and the food portions were HUGE and delish!
Shopped all around World of Disney and Disney’s Marketplace.
On our way home, we saw Illuminaitons shooting off over the trees. That got us VERY EXCITED for what was to come.
Super tired already! Not good. We’re in our 30’s, which isn’t old…..but isn’t 18 anymore either. Need sleep!
DAY #2 – Saturday February 26th 2011 “Magic Kingdom”
Woke up at 6am to sunny skies. Forecast is for mid 80’s today….no need for long pants or sleeves!
Drove through the Walt Disney World entrance, watched the highway signs turn from green to purple……yup, we’re back!
Got off the monorail just in time to catch the opening show at Magic Kingdom. The best way to start your first day in the parks! Seeing Mickey for the first time is always so exciting!
Strolled down Main Street USA. Singin’ “I’m walking right down the middle of Main Street USA”.
Entered Fantasyland through the Castle and got our first in-person glimpse of the Fantasyland expansion. For WDWMagic nuts like us, it’s always so amazing to see something you’ve been gawking at online for so long be right in front of your eyes. They really are making quick progress. In fact each day we were back in the Magic Kingdom the structures looked different with more added each time. It was very tempting to just give each other ten-fingers and hop over the wall. If our wives weren’t there to stop us, who knows what we might have done! The closest viewing you can get is over by the bathrooms next to Pinocchio Village Haus.
1.) Small World (first ride tradition in our family) 2.) Peter Pan 3.) Pirates of the Caribbean 4.) Splash Mountain (Not that wet this time) 5.) Big Thunder Mountain 6.) Big Thunder Mountain (2nd time) – No line, why not? Big Thunder rules! 7.) Walt Disney World Railroad (Stopped at defunct Toontown station for train to refill its water. We could see the demolition through the screens.) 8.) Space Mountain (New improvements were great. Smoother, darker, new queue was all nice.) 9.) Space Mountain (2nd time) – Might as well squeeze it in before lines get out of hand. Plus we like to ride both tracks. 10.) Carousel of Progress (Had a little trouble getting started L. They played the intro and then the carousel wouldn’t turn. We listened to the opening 5 times, but it finally got going. Thank God because this is one of our absolute favorites!) 11.) Haunted Mansion (Caught some glimpses of the new queue being built through the construction wall.) 12.) Snow White's Scary Adventure 13.) Winnie the Pooh (New queue was very well done. We were joking about the blocked off Tigger bounce…..broken ankle-ville…..bad idea from the start.)
Lunch at Pecos Bill
14.) Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade (We liked the new song.) 15.) Pirates of the Caribbean (2nd time) 16.) Swiss Family Robinson Tree House (Good to see a bunch of people on this attraction.) 17.) TTA People Mover (This will NOT be the only time we ride this. We love this ride!) 18.) Main Street Electrical Parade (We watched it from a great spot right in the center hub. We’ve been lucky enough to catch the Main Street Electrical Parade both for Magic Kingdom’s 25th and 40th Anniversaries. It was the first time our wives saw it.) 19.) The Magic, The Memories, and You (We absolutely loved this! It was our favorite new thing we saw. We can’t believe it’s not promoted or talked about more. Such an awesome show!) 20.) Wishes
Ice cream sundaes on Main Street. The smell they pump out of that ice cream shop is so intoxicating, how can you resist?
Shopped at the Emporium. Watched the “Kiss Goodnight” from the Castle and left the park at midnight. 16 hours in the park! That’s how we roll!
Tomorrow we’re going to Disney’s Hollywood Studios! Perfect first day at Walt Disney World!
The Gang
Dan and Faith on Main Street USA
Jeff and Carisa on Main Street USA
Nice shot of our favorite attraction!
Hanging out in Swiss Family Robinson’s Treehouse
In the Pirates of the Caribbean queue
Enjoying Popcorn while waiting for Main Street Electrical Parade!
Main Street USA at dusk
Nice nighttime Castle shot
Wishes!
- Hauntdmansion79
Well it's midnight here on the East coast and Monday morning is looming right around the corner. I'll have to leave it here tonight and post the rest tomorrow! Good night.
Yes, I'm most defanitely sure my times are correct. Magic Kingdom was the only park open until midnight and it wasn't open that late every night, only the nights I mention in this thread. You can't go by times posted in brochures or even online. You've got to check the times when you get to the park. Sorry you missed 2 extra hours. That stinks!
Change of plans. We aren’t as young as we used to be. Travel day and a long hot day at Magic Kingdom has kicked the crap out of us. So we are going to take a day off.
Slept in and lounged around the room until noon.
Took a nice walk around the hotel.
Got pizza and salads for lunch.
Chilled out by the pool. Alternating between sun bathing and dipping in the pool. So great to be in a bathing suite in February, with 80 degree weather, blue sky, sunshine, and palm trees. Back home on the Cape……it’s been snowing for 2 days!
Called home, all is OK with the houses and pets.
Got take out dinner and brought it back to our room and ate it while watching the Oscars.
Nice relaxing night and then to bed early to get back on the horse tomorrow!
Another gorgeous day with 80 degree temperatures, sunny, and a light breeze!
Headed out at 8:30am and arrived at Epcot by 9am. Parked in “Amaze”. Still no tram ride by this point….which kinda bummed us out…..we LOVE trammin’ it!
1.) Spaceship Earth (An Epcot 1st ride tradition. Descent still is inexcusably bad!) 2.) Living With The Land 3.) Circle of Life 4.) Journey Into Your Imagination 5.) Captain EO (Hadn’t seen this since the 80’s! Wives hadn’t seen it ever. It was really fun to see!)
Was completely blown away that they are selling friggin’ Hooter stuffed animals in the stores again! I bought a Hooter plush back in 1988! Awesome!
6.) Soarin’ (Used FastPass. Got front row, which makes the ride much better.) 7.) The Sea’s with Nemo and Friends 8.) Turtle Talk with Crush
Watched the manatees playing with each other. Really cute to see.
Next we did something we’ve never done before at Walt Disney World……we took a nap. The girls wanted to go shopping so Dan and I found the perfect spot to relax. It was on the grass, right by the benches and umbrellas near the ride times sign. The sun was hot but the umbrellas were casting perfect shade right on the soft grassy hill. We laid down right next to one of the garden speakers pumping beautiful Epcot area music and dozed off! It was just what the doctor ordered!
9.) Universe of Energy: Ellen’s Energy Adventure 10.) Test Track (Used FastPass) 11.) Mission: Space (We’re hardcore so we all do Team Orange! We love this ride and wish we could have done it more. We rode it 4 times back in 2005, but only rode it once in both 2008 and 2011.) 12.) Spaceship Earth (2nd time)
Got Mickey Bars…..FINALLY! By day 4, normally we would already have a few of these in our tummies!
Off to World Showcase at 6pm! We spent a good 9 hours in Future World, but we did every single attraction in Future World….that’s not easy to do.
13.) Mexico / Gran Fiestas Tour
Got Nachos from La Cantina restaurant. The new restaurant looks great! It blocks the view of World Showcase Lagoon from Mexico, but it is a nice addition. Nachos were CRAZY GOOD! We ate them on top of the Mexico pavilion overlooking the street below.
14.) Norway / Maelstrom 15.) China 16.) Germany 17.) Italy (Napoli’s Pizzeria is very nice looking! BUT……$40 for a large pizza? ZOINKS!)
Dinner at America’s Liberty Inn. Got our food and ate it picnic style on the ground by the Showcase Lagoon and waited for Illuminations!
18.) Illuminations (We got a great spot to watch! Always wonderful show!)
As we headed back to Future World we listened to Tapestry of Nations song, which we love and are glad they still use.
Another great day! Good weather, good company, good times!
Tomorrow……Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom!
The Gang
Eating Mickey Bars!
Standing at attention, preparing for our Mission: Space
DAY #5 – Tuesday March 1st 2011 “Animal Kingdom / Magic Kingdom”
Woke up to a little rain today. It’s supposed to just rain this morning and then be mid-high 70s.
Arrived at Animal Kingdom at 9:15am and parked in Unicorn. We had to……wait for it…….TRAM IT! Even though it was raining, we were all smiles trammin’ it! It’s just another Disney ride!
Since it was raining we decided to head to one of the indoor attractions in the park.
1.) It’ s Tough To Be A Bug
When we got out it was POURING RAIN! Out of all the times we’ve been to Walt Disney World, we’ve never seen torrential rain before. I guess there’s a first for everything. It was kind of fitting to see it at Animal Kingdom, with all the plants and trees. Kind of felt like you were in the rainforest. We waited under the Tree of Life until the next show got out and we had to move. On went the ponchos and out came the umbrellas. We prepared to make the journey to our next attraction…..rain be damned! Ready, set, go!
2.) Dinosaur! (We LOVE this attraction! It’s really underappreciated)
When we got out of Dinosaur the rain was stopping. Everything was wet for another hour or so and the black flies were out. But from then on it became another beautiful day!
3.) Expedition Everest (Yeti was in strobe B-mode…if you can even call it that. You can BARELY see him anymore. Still a great ride though.) 4.) Expedition Everest (2nd time) – Got off and right back on again! 5.) Kilimanjaro Safari (Lots of animals were out.)
Bought some fruit and ate it while people watching in Harambe.
The pollen was full blown in Florida while we were there. The rivers at Animal Kingdom had a solid green sheet of pollen over them. No wonder we’re feeling a little sluggish. Going from 30 degree weather to 80 degree weather and going from no pollen to severe pollen. Our systems are trying to acclimate themselves. I’m sure they will...right in time for us to go back to New England winter weather. Oh well.
6.) Pangani Forest Exploration Trail (Really fun! We saw so many gorillas up close. We saw a baby gorilla learning how to pound his chest, but when he did he almost knocked himself over. We also saw a gorilla repeatedly pick his nose and eat it. He must have done it 15 times in a row without stopping. We also saw a hippo swim under water right in front of us.)
Had lunch at Pizzafari. We had never been there before, so we decided to try it. It was good. The air conditioning felt good because it was muggy outside after the rain.)
We came up with the best breadstick dipping strategy so no one would double dip. See if you can follow this: Dip, flip, dip, rip, dip, dip. It totally works and you can even turn it into a rap song!
My wife’s got an issue with the drink size at Walt Disney World. It’s too much for her to drink and she feels bad wasting so much. She wishes she could get a kiddie size drink, but most cashiers won’t allow it. We tried everywhere we went and I think only 2 places gave her a kiddie size drink when she asked.
7.) Flights of Wonder (Got to stay after show to watch them test out a baby condor bird, which has a wing span of 10 feet! Faith’s a huge bird lover, so she loves this show. As for me and Dan….we definitely have F.O.B. fear of birds.) 8.) Maharaja Jungle Trek (Tigers, dragon, and bats are crazy!) 9.) Festival of the Lion King (This is still one of the best, most uplifting shows at Walt Disney World!)
Got our picture taken with Goofy!
10.) Dinosaur! (2nd time) – Love it! 11.) Expedition Everest (3rd time) – Total walk on! Walked from entrance onto ride vehicle. Couldn’t believe there was no wait at all!
Had a great time at Animal Kingdom. We took our time doing everything we wanted to. Now it is 6pm and we are going to do our first park-hop and hop over to Magic Kingdom for the night!
Magic Kingdom was far less crowded than it was on Saturday. There was hardly a wait for anything!
12.) Space Mountain (3rd time) 13.) Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin (Jeff got the high score with 99,800. Carisa was in charge of spinning the car.)
Ate dinner at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café while being entertained by the intergalactic superstar Sonny Eclipse! So good to see our friends Sonny. Tonight he was really on his game, his vocals were spot on!
14.) Winnie The Pooh (2nd time) – Played in the new interactive queue. The honey wall is cool. 15.) Mickey’s Philharmagic (The cast member running the attraction was great! To kill time she played Disney World trivia with us. We knew all the answers of course. So she then said she was going to ask us a “hard” one. She asked “what ride was where Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor is now?” No one answered, so Dan yelled “Timekeeper”. She said we were true Disney fans and that no one got that answer right all day. The room clapped and Dan took a bow.) 16.) Prince Charming’s Regal Carousel (Really short ride. Only went around twice!) 17.) Haunted Mansion (3rd time) – No one was in line. That’s always the scariest! Riding at night and being the first one up to the door. You don’t know whether to knock and never know if they are going to scare you or not. But that’s part of the fun! The butler was trying to scare people in the stretching room and OF COURSE he picks Faith. She has this face that screams “pick on me”. Of course the Minnie ears don’t help.) 18.) Peter Pan (2nd time) 19.) It’s A Small World (2nd time) – We were the very last ones on the ride that night.
Got to tram it to and from the park today! Our tram narrator on the way out of the park tonight was HILLARIOUS! It must be some type of rule that all tram narrators must have a good sense of humor, because most of them are very funny. It’s that Disney touch that makes even the parking lots a fun experience.
Got back to the hotel at 11pm. Another fantastic day!
Tomorrow we’re taking a brief departure from Disney and going to Islands of Adventure to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This will be a first for all of us and that’s exciting!
The Gang
Big time rain at Animal Kingdom
We LOVE Dinosaur!
On-ride photo from Dinosaur! We’re in the back row.
This is a fantastic report so far. I went at exactly the same time last year (and have just booked the same time next year :ROFLOL, but the weather was really disappointing. The highest we got for the whole two weeks was 68!
Being in rides alone is spooky, I found being on Journey into Imagination alone spooky enough, let alone the Haunted Mansion!!
DAY #6 – Wednesday March 2nd 2011 “Morning Off / Universal’s Islands of Adventure (Harry Potter)”
Took the morning easy. Slept in, the girls went down to the pool, did some laundry, and Dan and I went to Dunkin’ Donuts for some breakfast sandwiches!
Headed out for Universal’s Islands of Adventure at 12pm and arrived at 12:30pm.
Can we just say that if imitation is the greatest form of flattery, then Disney should feel VERY flattered! Even Universal’s nametags are Disney rip offs. I mean, come one, nametags? Surely there are enough designs that you don’t have to copy Disney’s. And the parking attendants uniform colors? It’s just funny.
Walked in the gate and headed straight for Harry Potter. It was very exciting!
It was so exciting to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! As far as theming and detail goes, this place is a total slam dunk and up to snuff with Disney! The place was PACKED, obviously everyone wants to see it. The place is actually not quite built to accommodate the large crowds it attracts. J.K. Rowling wanted to keep it quaint and narrow, keeping true to the books and movies, but it results in congestion. But still, you feel like you are in the books or movies. It is a dream come true for any Harry Potter fan!
Obviously we headed straight to Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and guess what?.......It was broken down. Big surprise coming from what we’ve read about how often this ride breaks down. It had been down all day and looked as if it there wasn’t a good chance that it would reopen. We paid $100 a ticket basically to see this attraction, so needless to say we were bummed. We decided to hang around the attraction in case it opened back up.
They were letting people walk through the queue of Hogwarts as compensation for the ride being closed. That might sound weird and sort of a pathetic consolation prize, but this queue is SO GOOD that it totally stands on it’s own as an attraction all by itself! It’s one of the best queues ever built! It is amazing to walk through the halls and various rooms of Hogwarts and any Disney fan would appreciate the work done on this queue!
Waited in line to see the Olivander’s wand show, but because Forbiden Journey was closed, all the other attractions were packed. We waited in line for 30 minutes and didn’t move an inch, so we decided to bail.
1.) Dragon Challenge (Basically just an off-the-shelf Six Flags coaster, not themed very well. Fun, but nothing to go crazy over.)
We decided we had waited long enough for Forbidden Journey so we decided to leave the area and see the rest of the park. As we walked by Hogwarts to leave, we noticed that the ride was just opening back up and we got to jump in line with no wait! This was great, because the wait rocketed to 90 minutes in no time flat!
2.) Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (More of a thrill ride than we thought. Great mix of screens and 3D environments. We wished we had more time to do this ride a second time, but the wait time didn’t go down at all for the rest of the day.) 3.) Jurassic Park River Adventure (The guide books say you don’t actually get that wet. BULL! We got absolutely SOAKED!) 4.) Spiderman (Never rode any of these rides before but heard really good things about Spiderman. They were right, the ride is unlike anything else in Orlando. Really great!) 5.) Hulk Coaster
6.) Cat in the Hat (Very good little dark ride.)
Headed back to Harry Potter to do some shopping.
7.) Flight of the Hippogriff (The theming was good but the ride is honestly 30 seconds or less! It was so pathetic. If we had to wait any longer than 10 minutes for this ride, we would have not been happy.)
Shopped through Hogsmeade and got Butterbeer! It was very delicious and VERY expensive! I’m sure they make an absolute fortune off of selling Butterbeer and wands!
Islands of Adventure closes at 6pm so we were forced to leave.
Ate dinner on International Drive at Bahama Breeze. It was really good.
Got to bed early. Tomorrow Disney’s Hollywood Studios (we still call it MGM).
Getting Butterbeer in Hogsmeade
Hogsmeade. The details were perfect.
Hogwarts Castle!
The portrait room in Hogwarts Castle
The Sorting Hat in Hogwarts Castle
Wet shirts after Jurassic Park River Adventure
Dan and Faith at Bahama Breeze
Jeff and Carisa at Bahama Breeze. You can see I'm working on my Trip Report notes.
DAY #7 – Thursday March 3rd 2011 “Disney’s Hollywood Studios”
We were surprised how long it took us to finally get to this park. We have already repeated Magic Kingdom, taken a day off, and gone to Universal before seeing Disney’s Hollywood Studios….crazy. But we are glad to be here!!!
Arrived at the park at 9am, parked in Stage and trammed it to the entrance.
ESPN is broadcasting in front of the Hat today for ESPN the weekend and it’s also a Fantasmic night, so the park is BUMPIN’!
1.) Great Movie Ride (First ride tradition and should be for everybody.)
Walked to Pixar Place and saw that Midway Mania already had a 60 minute wait and that the FastPasses were already for 5:30pm return time…..it was only 9:15am! We grabbed FastPasses. The popularity of this ride is staggering! The FastPasses were gone for the day by 10am.
2.) Tower of Terror 3.) Voyage of the Little Mermaid (Still a great show.)
Got FastPasses for Rockin’ Rollercoaster
4.) Walt’s One Man Dream (We feel that this attraction should almost be a required attraction to see. If it wasn’t for Walt’s dream, then none of us would be enjoying all the fun parks and attractions.)
Lunch at Pizza Planet. Had to wait 30 minutes to place our order and get food. Did we mention the park was busy?
5.) Muppet Vision 3D 6.) Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun Parade (Basically Block Party Bash, without the stopping, which we feel is a better idea. But where are Cars, Nemo, and Wall-E?) 7.) Rockin’ Rollercoaster 8.) Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular (Enjoyed show while eating soft serve in waffle cones…yum!) 9.) Toy Story Midway Mania (OK, let’s see what all this hoopla is about. This will be the only new attraction from Disney this trip. The queue is great, Mr. Potato Head is great, the ride is really fun, the 3D is effective, and the gameplay mechanics feel good and responsive. However we feel the wait time doesn’t match the ride. A wait time of 120 minutes should only accompany massive E-Ticket attractions. It’s too bad that if you use FastPass, you miss Mr. Potato Head.) 10.) Beauty and The Beast 11.) Fantasmic! (We LOVE Fantasmic! One of Disney’s best shows! We were told by a castmember to get there 2 hours early to get a seat on days when the park is this busy. We got out of Beauty and The Beast and walked right into Fantasmic with no wait at all. We sat right down. The amphitheater was infested with tiny gnats. It was fun to see the thousands of people all waving their arms around to shoo the bugs.)
When we got out of Fantasmic, the line for the 2nd 9pm Fantasmic show stretched all the way from inside the amphitheater all the way to the intersection of Sunset Blvd and Hollywood Blvd! WOW! Good thing we decided to see the first show!
Shopped on Hollywood Blvd and left the park by 9:30pm.
Late night eats on I-Drive and in bed by 11pm.
Tomorrow…..Epcot!
The Gang
Calling Buzz Lightyear!
Our traditional lunch at Pizza Planet
Rockin’ Rollercoaster on-ride photo
We missed riding Star Tours. Hope their doing it justice.
Weather had some light rain with mostly partly sunny and breezy high 70’s.
Headed to park a little later today because we wanted to take the morning slow.
Arrived at Epcot at 12:45pm. Headed right over to World Showcase to do the pavilions we didn’t get to our first day.
1.) Canada 2.) England (Girls got Fish N’ Chips in England. “I’m getting fish n’ chips in England! Chips please! Fish n’ chips, yay!” – Kryssa.)
Me and Dan wanted to try the new Kim Possible World Showcase scavenger hunt. We had to hoof it to Italy to pick up our Kimmunicator to begin our mission. We were assigned to go help Japan and defeat the Baby Bebe.
Saw the Remy animatronic through the window while going by the France restaurant. Very cool little addition.
3.) France / Impression of France (Started to rain pretty hard so we ducked in to watch the film.) 4.) Morocco 5.) Japan / Kim Possible Mission (The new Kim Possible thing is not only great for kids but is fun for adults too! It is really well done and the effects they’ve added to the World Showcase are very cool! Unfortunately we only had time for this one country’s mission. Maybe next time we’ll be able to save more of the world!)
Got turkey legs and cookies in America! Turkey legs are the straight up bomb! We ate while listening to Jose Feliciano perform.)
6.) America / American Adventure (We can never say enough great things about this show! It is so grand, so well done, and the animatronics are the best anywhere in Walt Disney World!)
Headed back to Future World to do some rides before seeing Illuminations.
7.) Seas with Nemo and Friends (2nd Time) 8.) Journey Into Your Imagination (2nd Time) 9.) Spaceship Earth (3rd Time)
Headed back to World Showcase and grabbed a spot by Norway.
10.) Illuminations (2nd Time)
Shopped in Mouse Gear and bought some sweet retro EPCOT Center t-shirts!
Said goodbye to Epcot. Took one last look at “the Ball”….see you next time!
Tomorrow…..Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom!
The Gang
We’re inside Wonders of Life Pavilion again? CRAZY! Kind of sad too.
Dan and Jeff playing with the Kim Possible “Kimmunicator”
Disney’s Turkey legs might be strangely large, pink, and taste 100% like ham….but they are SO GOOD!
DAY #9 – Saturday March 5th 2011 “Disney’s Hollywood Studios / Magic Kingdom”
Last full day in Florida. Weather is once again beautiful, with partly sunny 80 degree weather. This is the nicest weather we’ve had in Florida for as long as we can remember!
Got to Disney’s Hollywood Studios at 9:15am. We can tell the park is going to be very busy today. A massive mob of people just waiting to get through bad check.
1.) Toy Story Midway Mania (2nd Time) – We learned from the other day to run straight there and ride. Even though we did just that, we still waited for 40 minutes and FastPasses were completely gone by 10am. Mr. Potato Head is really good and we saw him take his ear off! I just wish his eyes weren’t so bright, it’s not the greatest effect. Jeff won out of the group with 150,500 pts. 2.) Tower of Terror (2nd Time)
Got FastPasses for Rockin’ Rollercoaster
Got fruit and had a morning snack at Rosie’s while people watching on Sunset Blvd. People watching is something we love to do and it is the best at Walt Disney World.
3.) Back Lot Tour (A really good, old-school MGM attraction. Good to see it still in good shape.) 4.) Rockin’ Rollercoaster (2nd Time)
Lunch at the Dockside Diner. We got chicken ceasar salad wraps and hot dog/pretzel wraps while listening to ESPN live on stage with NBA All Stars Kevin McHale, Karl Malone, Alanzo Mourning, Gary Payton, and Dicky V.
5.) Great Movie Ride (2nd Time) – Our main guide was really good, but our gangster guide was horrible! Good thing we knew the whole spiel by heart because you couldn’t understand a thing she said.
Said our goodbyes to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We had so much fun both days we came here! Until next time…..
Parked hopped over to Magic Kingdom at 4pm. Took the ferry boat over to the park. We found out that Magic Kingdom was extending its hours and was open until 12 midnight! Good and bad. Good because we would love to stay and rock the park ‘til midnight, but bad because we have an early morning tomorrow and have to pack tonight. We’ll see how it goes.
Magic Kingdom was really busy again tonight. The parks have been hoppin’! Had to park all the way in Dopey.
First thing we did was get FastPasses for Jungle Cruise because it’s our 3rd time in Magic Kingdom and we still haven’t ridden it yet….a crime!
6.) Tom Sawyers Island (Always fun! They were running 3 rafts to and from the island. Good to see it so busy!) 7.) Liberty Belle Riverboat (Nice and relaxing. Got good views of the new Haunted Mansion queue being built.) 8.) Jungle Cruise (Rode at dusk/sunset. Good tour guide, very funny.)
Got Dole Whips at Aloha Isle. Yummy in our tummies!
Got a great spot right inside the center hub for the nighttime shows.
9.) Main Street Electrical Parade (2nd Time) 10.) Magic, Memories, and You (2nd Time) 11.) Wishes (2nd Time) – Watched right by Partners statue.
It was a beautiful night in Florida. So nice to be outside watching such a beautiful site as Wishes over the castle!
Funny story…as Tinkerbelle flew down, we heard a little French kid say “Ohhhhh La Tinkerbelle!” We were quoting it all night after that.
After Wishes we tried to go to Tomorrowland…..along with every single other person in the park apparently! It was a stand still jam on the Tomorrowland bridge. So we bailed, back-doored it down the side of the castle and beat everyone to Space Mountain. Only to find it was down. Oh well.
12.) Carousel of Progress (2nd Time) 13.) TTA People Movers (3rd Time) 14.) Stich’s Great Escape (Stich is growing on me and Dan, but the wives don’t agree.) 15.) Pirates of the Caribbean (3rd Time)
Headed to Main Street USA. Had dessert at the bakery! Cinnamon roll, cookies, walnut brownie, and cheesecake….delish! Dan wins, because he was the smart one and got milk too!
We hadn’t spent a dollar of own money in the parks yet! Both couples have a Disney Visa and we had so many Disney Reward Points that it paid for all our food, parking, and souvenirs in the parks for the whole 10 days! Plus we have some left over for Photo Pass Pictures when we get home! It was so convenient and saved us over $750 for each couple!
Shopped at the Emporium and got most of the souvenirs we had been eyeing all week.
Left the park at 11:45pm, so we almost made it until midnight.
Took a nice long tram ride all the way around the Magic Kingdom parking lot. It took a good amount of time to get to Dopey, but we didn’t mind. We were riding a tram with no doors….no-door trams rock!
Got to the hotel and packed our suitcases L. Got to bed around 1:30am, so only a few hours of sleep. We’ve been lucky this trip though because we’ve been averaging 9-10 hours of sleep a night. So one short night of sleep is OK.
But we’re not done yet! Tomorrow we are going to the Magic Kingdom during the first half of the day. We booked a later flight out so we could go to a park on our travel day. We figured it would make going home less depressing. See you bright and early!
The Gang
Dan and Faith meeting Mike Wazowski
Mr. Potato Head animatronic in Toy Story Midway Mania
NBA All Stars at ESPN Weekend
Jeff always kisses the ground once while in Walt Disney World
The four of us on Main Street USA
Main Street USA at night
Having late night dessert at the Main Street Bakery!
, but the weather was really disappointing. The highest we got for the whole two weeks was 68!
