Jen's First WDW Trip

I've been back home an entire week now and I didn't take notes... so this might not be a spectacular report.

That said, I had a great time! Being a Californian, I've been to DLR twice in the last few years, but had never been on the east coast, let alone WDW. One of my bestest friends lives in Tampa, so I took advantage of uber cheap airline tickets and off we went! He was mildly resistant as he really doesn't like Disney (gasp! I know!) but loves me enough to be willing to go... however, he had a fantastic time! He even said that next time we go he wants to stay on property so that we can have a margarita while watching Illuminations without worrying about driving and so we could go take a nap in the afternoon.

Thursday we did MK. I just had to do MK cause I was looking forward to my fav attractions from DLR. We rode the ferry over from the parking lot. We'd planned on riding the monorail back that night since it'd be colder then, but we didn't as the lines were so very long. First we rode Peter Pan cause its my favorite back home and the wait was only 10 minutes. Then I'd planned on going straight to HM or PotC, but we got sucked into Fantasyland and ended up doing just about everything there. Everything is just slightly different. Small World seemed well... smaller. I don't think it really was smaller inside but the que is so much smaller etc and the indoor loading just felt... wrong. hehe I still loved it though.

Then we headed over to do PotC, Jungle Cruise, HM and the Tiki room. We did a few other things, I can't remember the exact order. All the queing is quite different - it struck me that only a few of the DLR ques are under cover - most of them are outdoors. I guess this is because rain is much more frequent in Florida. PotC was so totally different at first - while the que was more interesting, I really missed the beginning of the ride that is at DLR. The jungle cruise at MK was way better though - I loved it!

I don't do the big thrill rides, but I'd finally convinced myself to do Splash. I was totally looking forward to it but my friend still had a severe cold and seeing as it wasn't too warm that day, we decided to opt out. I was slightly bummed but, next time for sure!

My favorite new ride at MK ended up being Buzz Lightyear. I know we have it at DLR too, but it was new last time I went and we didn't bother trying it for some reason. Oh man what great fun that was.

We got a funnel cake and headed over to frontierland again to watch Spectromagic. I managed to get powdered sugar everywhere. The parade was great. It can't compare to the classic Electric Parade, but it was good fun anyway. We then ran over to HM for one my ride before heading toward the castle for Wishes. Wishes was fantastic, of course.

 

[Jen214]

Friday we did Epcot. Let me just say, epcot was totally my favorite. I'd enjoyed MK, but it was somewhat difficult cause it just wasn't "home." But since epcot was totally new, it was very exciting.

We did Spaceship Earth first, since it was right there. That was really pretty cool. Even after looking all over this site and others, I guess I didn't really research epcot as much as I thought I had, so a lot of it was a surprise. We did the Land, got fast passes for Soarin. I was totally looking forward to Soarin and behind me was a woman who was very nervous about it. Being a huge thrill chicken myself, I understand how she was feeling. It was really nice to be able to convince her itd be fine and offer to hold her hand. She ended up totally loving it, so that was awesome.

We did Universe of Energy and then headed out to the World Showcase. I loved all the little things - the acrobats and the street shows. The bands and such. They made it really great. We especially enjoyed the band in Morocco. Thinking back on it, there's no way we saw the majority of the pavillions. We were moving at quite a slow pace as I'd pulled a tendon or something in my foot the day before.

We decided to have lunch at the buffet in Germany. This turned out to be the highlight of our entire trip and the best money we spent. You have to understand that my friend can be pretty anti-social. So, when I put our names in and the CM mentioned that, just like in Germany, we'd be sitting with strangers I knew he'd hate that part. However, it smelled devine in there and something was nagging at me that I really wanted to do it, so I put our names in anyway.

We had the best time. The food was totally amazing. The atmosphere was fantastic. The show was great. The man who did the ringing of the cow bells was so entertaining. It turns out that we sat next to a man from Switzerland and his wife from Brazil. My friend is actually Canadian, and he and the Swiss man got to talking eventually. They were a very nice couple and it was great to spend an hour with them. How magical to have four countries represented at the table. We ended up spending nearly two hours at lunch just because we were having so much fun. I definitely look forward to going back.

We strolled around the pavillions the rest of the night. We caught the British Invasion show, I was able to call my aunt (who is a big Beatles fan) and share that with her - she loved it. I bought a wonderfully cute stuffed moose from the Canadian pavillion.

When it was starting to get to be time for Illuminations we wandered back over to Mexico. We bought churros and coffee (omg yum when combined!) and I was so excited to find a good seat. But then I realized the wind was blowing toward Mexico - the only reason I'd wanted to sit there was because all of you recommended it. However, all of you also recommended looking to see which way the wind was blowing, so taking stock of that we decided to head back to Canada. We watched from there and seeing as how my friend is Canadian, it was fantastic. My favorite part was when the torches were lit a few minutes before the show -- I could watch people in torch light for a long, long time.

Illuminations was far superior to Wishes, in my opinion. Very good times.

I can't wait to go back to Epcot and see everything I missed.

 

[Jen214]

Saturday, our last day, got off to a very slow start. It was really difficult getting moving that morning. I'd caught my friend's cold and didn't sleep well the night before.

We were off to MGM. There were cheerleaders everywhere. They weren't that bad really. It only made standing in line for lunch pretty long. And it meant no Indana Jones show - I was kind of disapointed with that. The Great Movie Ride was a lot of fun. We got in the front row. I love the movie montoge like thing at the end - those are always great and make me somewhat proud of our culture.

Muppets 3D was good fun. I felt like the preshow ran a little long, but the actual show was quite cute. I loved the bubbles!

We took in the Beauty and the Beast live show. By far the very best part was the preshow with the duop "Four for A Dollar" (or something like that) group. They were completely fantastic. As for Beauty and the Beast.. it was okay. I was completely spoiled by Aladin over at California Adventure - Beauty just paled in comparison.

Over all I felt like it was okay. I think next time I'd really rather do Animal Kingdom for our partial day. We'd totally decided to stay for Fantasmic when the rain really started coming down. By around 3:30 we decided we were done and it wasn't going to let up much. We finished our shopping and headed back to Tampa. It rained the whole way, so we're pretty sure they cancelled Fantasmic that night.


Over all? Disneyworld was great. Next time I want to save up and stay longer, definitely stay on property. I was so glad my friend had a good time, now he'll take me back again. We never waited in line longer than 20 minutes (though we did have to use a few fast passes to acheive that) and I will always want to go back this time of year. I don't know when I'll get back there again, but I really can't wait to show off Epcot now!

 

[LouDisney]

Glad you had a good time. Thanks for the trip report.

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Nice report - thanks for sharing

 

[Epcot82Guy]

Thanks for the report. Always cool to hear the "left coaster" perspective. :animwink: Really do try to save up for a longer vacation, perhaps during one of Epcot's festivals. There are so many things to see between DTD and the Resorts alone, and I know I never appreciated it until I was in my early 20s and spent some time exploring them. Keep us posted next time you make it over here!:wave: