Trip Report *COMPLETED* Sister Trip: 24 hours and then some

So I'm new here but love reading trip reports and figured that I should definitely add my own to this forum. I have a trip with a group of my best friends scheduled for October and that’s way too far away. So when the 24 hour DisneySide event was announced, my sister (Katie) decided that would be a good time to visit me in Florida and I happily agreed.

Here's us at last year's Monstrous Summer 24 hours-- we only did the second half that time, getting to MK around 7pm, but decided to go for the full event this year. And since we were basically out all day sweating and whatnot, it wasn’t pretty. So I figured I’d add this photo where we actually look cute.

Our adventure started when Katie picked me up at work around 3:30 on Thursday. We stopped to get some snacks then started the drive to Orlando. We made a dinner stop at 100 Montaditos, which is a bit out of the way but absolutely necessary. 100 Montaditos is a Spanish chain that I would go to all the time when I was studying abroad in Madrid. Hint: go to Cien on a Wednesday! All 100 montaditos (little sandwiches with delicious bread and awesome fillings) only cost $1.

so good!

Next we drove the rest of the way to WDW and checked in at All-Star Sports, Homerun Hotel Section.

After settling in, we drove over to Downtown Disney. We walked around the shops for a bit and I went to Guest Relations to get my seasonal pass and buy a Tables in Wonderland card. My sister got a brownie sundae at Ghirardelli that tasted a little off (we didn't end up finishing it). It was getting a little late and we had to wake up oh-so-early so I dragged Katie away from looking at pins and back to the hotel we went to get ready for our extreme Disney day!

 

[abzoo]

Fell asleep a little after 11 and slept for a few hours but around 3:30, I had a really rough time falling back asleep. After a bit, I gave up and started getting ready for the full day ahead of me. I woke my sister up a little before five (she was not at all pleased with me). We ended up leaving the hotel room around 5:15, making a quick stop at McDonalds because Katie needed caffeine. Next we got to the TTC and boarded a monorail which got us to Magic Kingdom just in time for the Welcome Show to begin.

Once the rope dropped, we made our way up Main Street to Tomorrowland and got to Space Mountain a couple minutes before 6. Soon enough we were in and rode twice.

Love this ride photo!

By the time we got out of Space, the sun had risen. I had seen on Twitter that Seven Dwarfs Mine Train had opened with the park when we were in line for Space Mountain round 2 and then saw another update about the rapidly increasing wait time. We still headed in that direction after leaving Tomorrowland. True enough, the line looked ridiculous (120 min posted), wrapping around the mountain all the way to the circus. I was definitely regretting not making that our first stop.

Oh well... on to Frontierland!

 

[mrdrift]

Nice start to the report, will be watching for more of this marathon.

 

[abzoo]

In Frontierland, we walked on to the wildest ride in the wilderness and then stayed in our seats for a second round. Next was Splash.

Look at all those empty logs!

It would have been a good idea to stay at MK that morning-- we would have been able to get so much done with the park being so empty. However, since my sister and I were only doing one full park day together, we wanted to see all we could see. So we started our park hopping early and started heading out of MK before 8AM, with a quick stop to sign up at Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom on Main Street, something neither of us had done before but figured we might as well.

We went back to the TTC and got the car to drive to Hollywood Studios- got there about 20 minutes after the park opened at 8 and despite it being the beginning of a Star Wars weekend, the park was not crowded at all. Our first stop was Toy Story Midway Mania, something we'd never gotten around to doing at HS because we don't go to that park often and when we did the lines were outrageous. I've done the California Adventure version but obviously the queue for the HS version is so much better, not only for the fact that it is indoors (of course this is necessary considering how sweaty we were so early on in the day).

yawns.

I still kinda suck at it though. Katie was best in our car!

Next stop at HS was Tower of Terror, pretty much a walk-on but it’s one of our favorites so we did it a second time and then decided to move on so we could keep on park hopping and get some food.

Farewell, Hollywood Studios!

 

[dancingtodisney]

Great TR so far! I'm staying at All Star Movies this October!!

 

[mrdrift]

This is a first for me, I have never read a report were you do a couple rides then park hopp do a couple more then park hopp. You really have me interested in this change of pace, keep it coming I want to see what you can get accomplished in a day and I might just learn what park hopping can do for me. Love the reaction picture on Splash Mountain !

 

[Maggie Mae]

lovin the TR - the guy on SM with y'all looks so tired lol! early starts will make you look that way lol!!

 

[abzoo]

Next up was Animal Kingdom. We got in around 10:20 and were hungry for lunch since we’d been up for so long already. We went to Flame Tree but it wasn’t open for a few more minutes so we waited and then got our chicken/ ribs combo with double beans to share. And check out our beautiful lunch view.

Earlier that morning, I had changed our fastpasses to Animal Kingdom ones so our first stop after lunch was Dinosaur. Fun. Then we trekked over to Africa for our safari FP+, stopping to look around at the shops. The fastpass return line was long-- they had a roped off section we had to wait in before we could scan our bands. It moved quickly enough and soon we were off on our safari adventure. This was the first time we’d ever sat in the back and it was soooo bumpy-- almost uncomfortably so. We still had fun and despite being jostled around so much, Katie got some good pics of the animals.

Of course no visit to the AK is complete without Expedition Everest, which holds a very high place on our list of favorites. We went all the way back over to Asia, trying to find all the shade we could to prevent baking in the sun. We scanned our magic bands and then began our expedition. We almost always ask for the back.

 

[abzoo]

This is a first for me, I have never read a report were you do a couple rides then park hopp do a couple more then park hopp. You really have me interested in this change of pace, keep it coming I want to see what you can get accomplished in a day and I might just learn what park hopping can do for me. Love the reaction picture on Splash Mountain !

Yeah we did some extreme park hopping! It allows you to hit your favorites at each park but the travel time does really add up. But with a full 24 hours, we had plenty of time!

 

[FlaggNL]

Nice start of a 24 hr marathon thanks for sharing and absolutely following for more keep on posting please!!

 

[smk]

following along!

 

[abzoo]

The sister was beyond ready for a nap at this point and we decided to take a short break. I think I would have been fine for the rest of the day without napping but Katie made it very clear that was not okay.

We got back to All-Star Sports at 2pm and I slept for 30 minutes and let Katie sleep for a half hour longer than I did. Once again, I was in the position of awakening the grumpy one. We were on our way again around 3:45, maybe? It was really bugging me that we didn’t go on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train before we left MK and I was getting nervous that it would close before we got returned later in the night since it was only a soft opening. So back we went to the TTC to a tram to a monorail to MK. We headed straight to New Fantasyland where we got in a line that said the wait was 60 minutes but was only actually 30.

It’s a really short ride but has some seriously great details. The queue went by quickly and the interactive elements were cool. The loading process was nice and easy and the ride itself was the smoothest coaster I’ve ever experienced. These are all things that people have been saying about the ride but the dwarf AAs in the show portion of the ride are very well-done. The gems everywhere in the mine are beautiful and add such awesome color to the scene.

With that ride crossed off our list, we had another first to accomplish: visiting all four parks in one day. It’s something we have tried before but we've never succeeded (since I can't always get Katie to get going early enough or because we'd feel too rushed). We still had to go to Epcot!

 

[abzoo]

We started our Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game and then headed for the monorail. There was such a long line that we weren’t even sure that we’d get on the next one that came so we turned around and walked over to the ferry line. That was the quicker option so we boarded the ferry (They took out a bunch of the benches that used to be on the first level of the ferry- not too pleased about that). Once we go to the TTC, we switched to the Epcot monorail and finally made it after the longest leg of our park-to-park travel yet. Our first stop in Epcot was Club Cool. We love it but miss the flavors that were recently removed like Israel’s lemon soda or Mozambique's ginger ale.

We wanted a little something to eat so Katie got a coffee at the new Starbucks and then we went to Germany, as we usually do, and grabbed a bratwurst to split. We walked around the World Showcase and took pictures/ looked in shops.

We had to get back to MK for a dinner reservation at 9:30 so we only went on one ride at Epcot, one that we hadn’t been on for a very long time, Living with the Land. Katie claimed that she had no idea this pavillion or ride existed (We spend most of our time in the World Showcase) but once we got on the ride it all came back to her. It was nice and relaxing. Then we ended our rushed tour of Epcot and went monorail-monorail back to the Magic Kingdom.

 

[abzoo]

So we get in line to enter MK and guess what… my MagicBand is missing! ugh. setback. We were really liking the MagicBands up to that point (and I still think they’re great). Scanning the bands upon entering a park or using a FP+ and seeing the Mickey head light up green is much more exciting than paper fastpasses and much more convenient. That is, until they fall off of your arm. So we got in the line for Guest Relations as Wishes was starting (and were there until Wishes ended-- we could hear everything but saw nothing). The CM at guest relations deactivated my blue band and gave me a new boring gray one and then we got right in to MK.

BUT check out what I did with that boring gray MagicBand.

Tangled-inspired and done with nail polish!

 

[melmel89]

great tip for brightening up the magic bands might just have to take my nail art pens with me now!

 

[LilWalt]

That's a whole lot of hopping in one day but I like it! Keep it coming!!!

 

[abzoo]

We made it to Main Street just in time to fight the masses of people headed in the opposite direction after Wishes. Our dinner reservations were for Cinderella’s Royal Table-- I was looking for ADRs once we decided to go to the 24 hour event and sort of booked this one on a whim, mostly expecting to cancel it later and get my money refunded. Surprisingly, however, my sister was very excited to do this character dining (perhaps because she wasn’t the one paying the hefty price for the meal). She really wanted to eat inside the castle. So we made this a birthday event, since she was in the midst of finals during her actual birthday 13 days before and I had yet to celebrate with her.

This ADR did take up a chunk of our time, although it was nice to have some down time in a comfortable and beautiful setting. We took a not-so-cute picture with Cinderella (which we now have multiple copies of, as the photo package is included in the price of the meal) and then didn’t get called up to the dining room until 10.

When our server brought magic wands and wishing stars for both of us, I mentioned to Katie that she could get a sword instead so her wand was swapped out for one of those.

For as horrible as I’ve heard the food is at CRT, we really did like everything we ate:

Salads...

Entrées (my salmon and her pork with cous cous)...

 

[abzoo]

and desserts...

and here's my dessert after my sister decided to stick her finger right into it... classy.

And the princess pics...

After we finished dinner (around 11:30), we loaded up all our goodies including the birthday cupcake and went to Philharmagic, which we hadn’t done in a very long time. Afterwards, we went back to Main Street to pick up on our Sorcerers mission (really Katie was playing, I wasn’t too into it yet).

 

[mrdrift]

Great report and pictures. Following the excitement. Very artistic creation on the magic band with only using nail polish.

 

[roropatches]

Awesome report so far!! Loving it.... Thanks for sharing!