Trip Report Dreaming My Way Back to Disney. A First Ever Solo Trip

I’ve been back for over a month now and am finally getting around to writing about one of my best ever Disney trips. I spent 2 nights at All Star Movies, the first time staying here.

This was my first time back at Disney World since January 2020 when I did this:

But, I’m getting ahead of myself because the main part of the trip was…

A transatlantic cruise on the Disney Dream.

This has been a cruise I’ve wanted to take ever since my first cruise 11 years ago, so I was very excited to finally be able to do it.

So the plans were:

October 20th to November 2nd: 13 night Westbound Transatlantic cruise from Southampton to Fort Lauderdale with stops at Vigo (Spain), Lisbon (Portugal), Ponta Delgada (Azores) and Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point.

November 2nd: Brightline train from Fort Lauderdale to Orlando

November 2nd to November 4th: All Star Movies resort only stay with lots of good food, resort hopping and fireworks

And I did all of this completely solo, which as a mum of four was not something I’d had the opportunity to do before.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Lisbon is one of my favorite places in the world; such a beautiful city

I loved it there, definitely want to go back

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 2nd November: Fort Lauderdale to Disney World (cont)

I’d been checking the app to see if my room number was there but hadn’t seen anything even though it was after the 3pm check in time, so I headed to the front desk when I arrived at All Star Movies. I had a preferred room booked because that was all that was available when I booked. Check in was quite quick and I was soon heading over to my room in the Fantasia section.

I liked the Mickey at the pool

I had to take a photo of my room number so I didn’t forget it, I still had 8662 stuck in my head from the cruise.

It was a corner room on floor 2 without a connecting door and was in a pretty quiet area. This was my first time staying in an All Star Resort and I’d been a bit worried it might be really noisy but I liked it there. I didn’t end up spending much time at the resort but I would definitely stay there again. My only issue with noise was the same with all the resorts with doors that open onto the outside, people who just let the doors slam shut.

My priority for that evening was watching Happily Ever After which was at 8.30. One of my favourite places to watch at a resort is in front of Gasparilla’s at the Grand Floridian, I like that I can stand by the railings so no one can stand in front of me. On my train journey I’d been checking for dining reservations at the monorail resorts but couldn’t find anything early enough that would guarantee that I’d be out in time so thought I would just get something from one of the quick service places over there. Once I was in my room I checked one more time, there still wasn’t anything early enough but there was a 9.10 reservation for Citricos, one of my favourite restaurants. As it was only 4ish and I hadn’t eaten much all day I headed over to the food court. I had the chicken parm which was just ok, no photos because I was too hungry.

Back in the room Piglet got comfortable while I got ready to go out.

This is the only room photo I took. After 13 nights of a very tidy room on the cruise, the two nights I stayed here I lived out of my suitcase which pretty much exploded across the room.

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 2nd November: Fort Lauderdale to Disney World (cont)

At about 5.30 I headed out to get the bus to Magic Kingdom. I planned on visiting the monorail resorts before the fireworks and wanted to give myself plenty of time. It did feel a bit odd having to allow so much time to get somewhere, I was used to it taking five minutes to get from my room to dinner on the ship.

A Magic Kingdom bus pulled up just as I arrived at the bus stop, I was mostly lucky with transport the whole time there. Even better, it was a bendy bus. My girls loved the bendy buses when they were little.

There were only a few other groups getting on the bus and it was an ok journey apart from one young girl right at the back of the bus. She had a bubble wand and was playing with it the entire way to Magic Kingdom which is quite a long journey from the All Star Resorts, the whole back section of the bus was filling with bubbles. I was sitting on the first seat of the back section and some of the bubbles were getting as far as me and it was getting a bit annoying, anything with bubbles was always an outside toy for my children.

Up until now I hadn’t been at all emotional about being back in Disney World. I was expecting to be, it was a big part of my family’s life for a long time and had been so long since we’d been back. We visited every year since my oldest (now 25) was a toddler, sometimes twice a year and always for 2+ weeks. I think I was tired from the travelling and never having stayed at the All Stars before didn’t have any emotional attachment to it.

That changed the minute I got off the bus at the Magic Kingdom. I got as far as the walkway through the bus stop and was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t move and I could feel the tears starting to well up. A very lovely transportation CM actually came over to me to check that I was ok. After a little bit of a chat with him I managed to get myself moving and was soon seeing this

It was very crowded so I headed over to the monorail stopping to take a quick photo of my destination for the evening

 

[Duckberg]

Looks like you had a great time. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 2nd November: Fort Lauderdale to Disney World (cont)

As it had been five years since my last visit I expected things to feel a bit different, but once I got over that initial overwhelmed feeling everything was just so familiar. I knew what to do, where to go, it really was like coming home . The only difference in front of MK were the scanners instead of the bag check which I preferred, it was much quicker going through.

I hopped on the resort monorail and stopped at the Contemporary first. I didn’t really do much there, just wandered around a bit, happy to just be there.

I’d promised my oldest daughter I’d look for something with Stitch on it to take back for her. Her first cinema visit at age 3 was to see Lilo and Stitch, and she’s been a huge Stitch fan since. I was taking photos so that she could choose something.

I thought Darren might like this golf shirt but he couldn’t decide.

Proof I was at the Contemporary

Then back on the monorail to the Polynesian. Again just wandering around taking in the atmosphere.

More Stitch

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Saturday 2nd November: Fort Lauderdale to Disney World (cont)

Then off to the Grand Floridian.

I’d seen online that the gingerbread house was being built and was hoping it would be finished by the time I was there. I was so happy that it was, and better still there were hardly any people there. The Christmas tree wasn’t up yet and I don’t think there were any treats on sale, so that is probably why.

I wandered about taking photos.

I was feeling a bit thirsty so stopped into the sundries shop just off the lobby to get a bottle of sprite. There was a woman with three children in front of me to pay and the children were bickering over the keyrings they were buying. The CM at the register had to go off to get something for them, the mum was eye rolling the kids and was very apologetic to me. When it was time for them to pay she told the CM that she was paying for my sprite as well. It was such a small thing to do, but made me very happy that there are nice people around.