Trip Report Let's go to Disney! ... in 12 Days! A Trip Report

I'm home. I'm sad. And I'm not ready to be back in the real world. So, I guess I'll write a Trip Report!

Since this is my first adventure in trip reporting, I'll introduce myself a bit. If you read my pre-trip report you might know a little about me and this whirlwind trip. If you didn't here are the basics!

My name is Kaitlyn, I'm 23 years old, and I'm from Massachusetts. Ever since I was little I have been obsessed with all things Disney. My family used to go on Disney vacations quite frequently when I was a kid because my dad would win trips at work and he would always choose to go to Disney because he's a big kid at heart. I made it back to WDW in Jan 2016 with my boyfriend, Cody, for my first trip as an adult and I decided that I needed to go back as often as I could because it's even more amazing than 14 year old me remembered it to be. Cody was not as convinced but I think that I am slowly teaching him to be a Disney nut

Now to the trip.

The Basics
Who: Me (23), Cody (23), and Cody's whole family -- Mom, Dad, and 2 sisters B (25) +A (17)
When: Feb. 23-26
Why: Celebration of A's upcoming High School Graduation and a final family trip before B's wedding in August

Here's a photo of the group of us loving life at Magic Kingdom (and being blinded by the deceivingly bright sun).

L-R: Mom, Dad, A, Cody, Me, B

When I say that this trip was a whirlwind, I mean it. That might even be an understatement.

I received a phone call from Cody's mom about 2 weeks ago telling me that she wanted to go to Disney because A has been begging to go (she doesn't remember any of their previous family trips because she was so young the last time they all went and she really wanted to go on a family vacation before the big changes their family is seeing this year. I was SO excited for multiple reasons: 1) I love Disney 2) I have never been invited on a vacation with Cody's family and it was really nice to be invited. Then she told me the dates of the trip and I realized that I had less then 2 weeks to plan a trip for 6 people, during February vacation week and Princess Marathon weekend. And to complicate matters further, I realized that I had a work commitment on 2/26 that I couldn't miss and would need to leave a day early. I thought that I would need to turn down the invite.

My heart broke a little.

But we made it work! We arranged flights that allowed me to leave the night before the rest of the family and they got some time just the 5 of them. It ended up working out really well.

Up Next: Adventure is out there!

 

[kaitertot5249]

Our trip started early Thursday morning. I woke up at 5am, got dressed, packed my last few things up, threw on my Minnie ears and pretty much ran out the door. My dad was kind enough to drive me over to Cody's house early in the morning to make the trek to the airport a little easier. He lives about 10 minutes away from me so it wasn't a long ride.

I'll make a little disclaimer here, I tend to forget to take pictures. I am of the mindset that I don't want to miss anything because I'm experiencing the trip through my phone screen. But then I get home and realize that I took barely any photos and regret not taking at least a few more So I apologize in advance for the gaps in photo coverage that will occur throughout this To hold you over, here's a picture of Cody and I being goofy and excited the night before our trip:

Now back to the good stuff.

If there is anything that you need to know about me before this trip report really gets underway, it's that I am an over planner and a scheduling nut. I'm one of those people who still uses a paper planner daily to keep my everyday life in order. When it comes to travel, I go into overdrive. I like setting times for things and sticking to them. So when we say we're going to leave to head to the airport at 5:30, I assume that is what will happen. This trip, I had to let go of some of my obsessed schedule keeping and just roll with it. I have to say, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Our flight was at 8:10 and we only live about 30 minutes away from the airport so we were giving ourselves ample time. However, I got to Cody's house at 5:25 as planned and the house looked completely dead. I'm talking pitch black and silent *knock knock* DISNEY IS WAITING! And to top it off, no one was answering my phone calls! Admittedly, I started panicking a bit.

We were going to miss our flight and I would never make it to Disney again! Okay, maybe not that panicked, but I was nervous.

After pacing around in their driveway for about 5 minutes and frantically calling Cody and knocking on the door, the garage door started to open and one by one, Cody and his family (minus his mom who was flying down the next day) trickled out and got their stuff in the car.

Finally, at 5:45 we were on our way!

We hit some early traffic heading into Boston and got to the airport around 7. We parked the car and headed over to security. The line wasn't too bad but people were moving so slow! COME ON PEOPLE! DON'T YOU KNOW KAITLYN HAS TO GET TO DISNEY!?

We made it through security in about 20 minutes (but it felt like a lifetime!) and with boarding starting in 15 minutes, we headed to our gate. But first, Starbucks. Be prepared, this is some serious foreshadowing for the rest of our trip .

When we finally all got our Starbucks orders, boarding was just about to start so we booked it over to the gate and realized that they moved our plane to the other end of the terminal! So off we went, running with our iced coffees in hand, to catch our plane.

We made it just in time! After an uneventful yet slightly bumpy flight, we made it to MCO!

Look at that blue sky! It had been a while since we'd seen that in Boston. As soon as we landed, I felt the humidity and I was ready to get to the magic!

Up next: Which park do we head to first?!

 

[amjt660]

Following along
The blue sky is gorgeous
Cannot wait to hear what happens next

Max

 

[LeighM]

I'm an over planner too. My next trip is a little over a year away and I've already started my planning spreadsheet LOL

 

[LowesChevy]

joining in the fun as well

 

[kaitertot5249]

When we got off the plane we gathered our group (we sat kind of scattered around the plane because of the last minute booking) and we were off!

I think that it was around this time that A started saying that everything was magic and questioning the reality of her current circumstances and we hadn't even made it to the parks! She was in awe of everything this trip and really helped me to enjoy the moment and take in the details. We took our first "ride" of the trip on the fonorail and set out on our journey to find a cab. We were staying off site and the signs for the Magical Express were making me so sad, I love staying on site and throughout the trip I was reminded why. It's so convenient and you don't have to leave the magical Disney bubble!

Soon enough we found a cab and got to our hotel, the Quality Suites Royale Parc Suites or something like that. We honestly heard so many different people (including hotel staff!!!) calling it different things. Anyways, the hotel was fine and there was nothing wrong with it other than the fact that it wasn't a Disney hotel and that the "complementary park transportation" was misleading and irregular. It wasn't in the greatest area but the hotel itself felt safe and was clean so it served it's purpose. However, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone asking where they should stay, there are much better options.

We quickly got checked in, threw our stuff into the room, some of us changed, and we caught the next cab out of there. We were headed to......

Animal Kingdom!

This is a park that I had not really spent much time in before this trip and I'm SO happy that I made time for it. I think it might be up there as one of my favorites now. Every inch of this place is dripping in detail. I can't wait for Pandora to open, it's going to be incredible.

As we made our way through the park entrance and across Discovery Island, A was completely awe struck. Everywhere she looked she fell more and more in love with Disney. Her catch phrase this weekend was "I love everything!" and her amazement was contagious. It was almost like visiting with a Disney newbie even though she had been before because she didn't really remember it and she didn't know what to expect.

We were all starving so we went on the hunt for lunch. I should mention that A can't eat gluten and she was not used to being in a place where she would be able to find something that was safe for her to eat pretty much everywhere so she would check the app on her phone for reviews before we ate anywhere which I totally understand but deciding where to eat took us a long time.

We ended up at Flame Tree and of course, I didn't take and pictures. I had the turkey sandwich and I thought it was delicious. Everyone else had the pulled pork sandwich (A's with a gluten free bun) and I think they all enjoyed it.

Next up was our first FastPass at Expedition Everest, one of my favorites.

This queue area is so amazingly detailed, I almost wish that the FastPass line didn't move so fast! I always think about how much fun it would be to be the person who finds and decorates Disney queue areas. I would love going to work everyday! I also wish I would remember to take pictures of all the beautiful details while I wait for rides, I have nothing better to do, right! I guess I'll just have to go back someday

I think that it's safe to say, everyone loved this ride and it set the trip off to an awesome start.

Ride photos are the best photos, amiright?!

Up next: In the jungle...

 

[Emadsen]

Following along! There is no such thing as over planning for Disney

 

[*Flynnderella*]

I'm in!! Can't wait to read more

 

[mlegerto]

Following your trip! Can't wait for the next update.

 

[kaitertot5249]

I'm so sorry that it is taking me so long to post the next part of our first day! Work has been getting in the way, I have a big project coming to a close at the end of this month and I'm switching jobs at the beginning of April so I've been working long hours and haven't had time to dedicate to trip reporting. Hopefully, I'll have some time tonight or tomorrow to make a dent!

 

[kaitertot5249]

After riding Everest we had some time to kill before our next FastPass. After checking wait times I realized that there was a Festival of the Lion King show in about 20 minutes at 3pm. Cody and I love this show and knew that everyone else would love it too so we decided to make our way over to Africa. Along the way we stopped for some photos:

We also decided we wanted Starbucks. If we had known that the line was going to move at a crawl we would have skipped this. Unfortunately, we missed the show by about 3 minutes! Now we had to decide what we wanted to do. We still wanted to try and see the Lion King show at some point (it's one of A's favorite movies) so we had a little pow wow. Our next FP was for Dinosaur in a little over an hour followed by our Safari FastPass. We chose to hang out in Africa until the 4pm show and see that before heading to Dinosaur. We killed time wandering through the Gorilla Falls Expedition Trail. I had never done any of the trails at AK before so this was new for everyone!

It was great! We saw lots of animals (I fell in love with the Okapis I loved them so much I forgot to take pictures), here are Timon's relatives:

And some zebras!

These pictures are really underwhelming, I know. They will get better (I hope!).

Anyway, I was really impressed by the Cast Member in this section of the trail. She was so knowledgeable, as are all of the CMs, but she was so happy to answer all of our questions and gave us some insider secrets (at least she told us they were secrets ) about how the environments are created to keep animals separate while making it all look like one open environment. These are the details that make me love Disney more and more every trip.

And then, the stars of the trail. The Gorillas!

There were a bunch of gorillas in this section, probably 3 older ones and 4 young ones in this pen alone. They were all playing together, the little ones were chasing one of the bigger ones around on the hill in the middle, it was so cute! At one point the bigger one climbed up to the top of a narrow tree and started throwing twigs and leaves at the smaller ones as they tried to climb up to bug him some more. It was awesome!

After this we needed to start heading back over to catch the Lion King show. I was going to be very disappointed if we missed it again!

We got to the theater about 5 minutes before the show was supposed to start and the line was still filing in. It looked really long and we were pretty sure we were going to miss it again, there was no way that they would have space for this many standby people! We thought about bailing and heading over to Dinosaur as our FP window had also just opened.

We were just about to jump out of line when the standby line started moving again and we made it in!!

Up next: The Circle of Life!

 

[kaitertot5249]

As we walked into the theater A and I were discussing what the show was going to be like and I couldn't find the words to explain it. I told her that she would just have to wait and see! She was nervous that we would have really bad seats because we were at the very end of the line.

It actually turned out that we had great seats! We were in the very last row of the front section in the Giraffe area: quick escape when the show ends and not so far back that we couldn't see the action!

I absolutely love this show. Everything about it is amazing. I love that it isn't just a recreation of the movie but features all of the best songs, that there are interactive parts, and the talent of the actors/singers/dancers/acrobats is just incredible. I could never get tired of watching the "Can you feel the love tonight" sequence. My eyes leak every single time !

Once the show ended, we jumped right out of our seats and headed out of the theater, we had no time to waste! Our Dinosaur FP expired in 25 minutes!! We all agreed that we would make a bee line for Dino-land with no distractions and no stopping for pictures.

A had her eye on a Mickey Ice Cream Bar since we entered the park but we had not yet made the stop. She spotted the cart as we exited the theater and decided that she wanted to grab one for our walk to Dino-land. Apparently, everyone else who had just watched the Lion King show also wanted one and the line was super long. B quickly said that she could wait another 30 minutes for her Mickey shaped bar of deliciousness because we had to walk across the park. After minute or so of back and forth it was decided that B was right so A agreed and we moved on.

We made it to Dinosaur and quickly realized that the FP was unnecessary -- the standby wait time was 10 minutes and the ride was pretty much a walk-on. B does not like this ride, every time she rides it, she spends the whole ride with her eyes shut hoping not to attract the attention of the Iguanodon. Unfortunately, the photo won't upload but It's pretty funny, take my word for it.

Now, we made our way back across to the safari but not before stopping for...

Mickey Ice Cream Bars! (I ate mine too quickly to produce photo evidence...)

We also stopped for some more photos in the same spot as before, because we're original.

And then we finally made our way over to the Safari! Again, this was new for me and I loved it. We got to see so many animals and the way that the set the whole area up is incredible. There was a family sitting behind us who were finishing up their trip, they overheard our conversation about our plans for tomorrow and their daughter started telling us how much she loved Test Track and advised that we go on that because she liked it more than Frozen Ever After. It was very cute!

Here are a few photos from our two-week long safari:

Puppy!

I have heard that there are good and bad times of day to do the safari and I think that we picked a pretty good time. The sun had started to go down so there was a lot of activity, some of the animals were eating dinner and lots of others were just kinda hanging out. But they were all easy to see and VERY close to the truck in some cases.

I was thinking the entire time about what the CM told me earlier while we were on the Gorilla Falls trail about the carefully designed environments and how they keep the animals separate and she was right! It was truly incredible.

Up next: Do we stick around for Rivers of Light?!

 

[amjt660]

After riding Everest we had some time to kill before our next FastPass. After checking wait times I realized that there was a Festival of the Lion King show in about 20 minutes at 3pm. Cody and I love this show and knew that everyone else would love it too so we decided to make our way over to Africa. Along the way we stopped for some photos:
View attachment 193861

We also decided we wanted Starbucks. If we had known that the line was going to move at a crawl we would have skipped this. Unfortunately, we missed the show by about 3 minutes!

I think we have to update the expression to now be
Only thing certain in life is death and taxes and ridiculous long lines at Starbucks!

Loving the report

Max

 

[mlegerto]

Loving your TR so far!

There were a bunch of gorillas in this section, probably 3 older ones and 4 young ones in this pen alone. They were all playing together, the little ones were chasing one of the bigger ones around on the hill in the middle, it was so cute! At one point the bigger one climbed up to the top of a narrow tree and started throwing twigs and leaves at the smaller ones as they tried to climb up to bug him some more. It was awesome!

Wow that is amazing! I've walked some of these trails quite often and I find that the animals are often sleeping or just hanging out. What a great experience - I wish I could see them interacting like this! Hopefully on our next trip.

 

[gdisneyfans]

I LOVE Festival of the Lion King as well - I may have shed a tear or two while watching it

Good luck with the new job move! Looking forward to seeing if you do make it to Rivers of Light.

 

[kaitertot5249]

I am SO far behind on this trip report! My life is a bit crazy right now so I'm hoping that once things start to slow down a bit I'll be able to be more consistent with my reporting.

After we returned from our two week safari, we didn't really know what we wanted to do. We could stick around in Animal Kingdom, grab some dinner somewhere, and try and get seats for Rivers of Light but that we would have to wait for the show for more than an hour and our group wasn't in the mood for that kind of a wait. So we decided that park hopping over to EPCOT for dinner and Illuminations would be our best bet.

I'm really sad that we didn't get to see Rivers of Light but I know that there will be another trip (hopefully soon ) and that this trip was not about me so I was okay with switching over to EPCOT. I missed Illuminations on my trip in Jan 2016 so it had been quite a while since I'd seen it and I was excited to see it again so it was all good.

Before heading out of the park we decided to check the wait time on Everest -- 10 minutes! I guess everyone was trying to get in to see Rivers of Light and we lucked out. We made our way across the park and I snapped this picture along the way.

This area is absolutely gorgeous! I was in awe looking out over the Rivers of Light seating area. It's amazing.

The wait time for Everest was so quick it was awesome. We had a great time on the ride again. The views at dusk from the top of the mountain are pretty great. It was an all around beautiful night and the sky was doing some pretty cool things, I wish that I had taken my phone out to take a picture before the yeti stole the track

After the ride we made our way over to the exit and got on the EPCOT bus with perfect timing -- there was a bus waiting for us when we got to the stop!

After a quick ride we got to EPCOT. I am a big EPCOT fan but Cody thinks it's boring and could easily skip it. I don't think he has ever really taken the time to take in all the details of the park and I'm trying to show him how great it is. I'll get him to understand someday

Photo pass photo op as we walked in:

Spaceship Earth makes a beautiful model

I love how they project the light onto SSE, it's just looks so cool. I told A that there was a ride inside and she thought this was amazing. She probably said something about how everything was incredible and that she never wanted to leave. Me too, she's a girl after my own heart. We had a FP+ for SSE in the morning so I told her that we would get to go into the ball then.

By this point we were starving. It was close to 8pm and we had done a lot of walking since we had those Mickey Ice Cream Bars. This was probably the hardest time we had agreeing on a meal the whole trip. As I mentioned earlier, A can't have gluten and this early in the trip she was still very unsure about eating at the parks. Add in the fact that we were all very hungry and getting tired after a long day of travel and a hot afternoon at AK and we were all pretty hangry.

We made our way straight back to the World Showcase because there are so many options. Cody, B, and I knew one thing - we wanted a beer. Our plan was to find somewhere to eat and a place to eat it where we could also see Illuminations. As we headed towards Canada, A had her app open and saw that the Electric Umbrella had gluten free mac n' cheese and she was very excited about it. Her dad said that he would walk back with her but Cody, B, and I were more in the mood for a WS meal for many reasons and A didn't want to go back

We got to the UK and Cody spotted the Yorkshire County Fish Shop and B and I were sold -- fish and chips and a beer was exactly what we had in mind. A really doesn't like fish and chips so we continued into France to try and find somewhere that everyone was okay with eating. We were getting close to needing to order food and find a spot or we would risk missing Illuminations so things were getting a bit tense. After some discussion we decided the the three of us would grab our fish and chips and look for a table in the little patio area just next to the fish shop while A and her dad went back to the Electric Umbrella to get their food. They planned on grabbing food and heading back to the UK to eat with us and watch Illuminations.

Cody, B, and I hopped in line and within 5 minutes we had our food. I was so impressed with the speed of service here! We were not expecting to have our food so quickly, we would have waited to order if we had known. We also got really lucky and as we headed into the patio area, four tables cleared out so we had our choice of tables to watch Illuminations from! We sat down and started picking at our food because we were so hungry. Our plan was to wait for A and her dad to get back so we tried to call them and let them know where we were and see if we could get an estimate on their return time. Apparently the walk back to Electric Umbrella was longer than they thought it would be and there was a long line and slow service so they were not even close to having their food in hand. They told us to go ahead and eat without them. We felt bad but we happily ate and enjoyed our beer They ended up eating Electric Umbrella since they didn't want to walk across the park with food in their hands. I don't blame them, it was a really busy night at EPCOT!

It was getting close to show time and we were starting to get worried that they wouldn't make it back to see Illuminations and I knew that A would love it. Disney really knows how to do nighttime entertainment. Luckily they made it back with 5 minutes to spare. We had pretty great seats on the patio and we had a great view of the center of the water. There were people in pontoon boats floating in the water right near the International Gateway, now they know how to watch a fireworks show!

The show was great! I love the use of projection, lasers, and fire to enhance the fireworks show. Everyone loved it and we were all happy that we chose to watch it. We had to make our way back out to the bus stop pretty quickly after the show ended because of the bus schedule to get back to our hotel (another reason staying off site is not something I am planning on doing again if it can be avoided). We were told that the bus would leave at 10 on the dot and if it left you were out of luck, forced to call a cab. We didn't know how far the bus stop would be from the others so we chose to leave right after the fireworks to ensure we would make it in time.

Unfortunately, the bus was late. VERY late. It didn't show up until 10:30 and we were all very tired and a little cranky at this point. Needless to say, we were all very happy to climb into bed on our first night.

Up next: EPCOT for real!

 

[amjt660]

Illuminations is a favourite of mine as well
I am glad you got a great table to watch it from
I usually end up on the bridge between UK and France

Still following along and enjoying the TR

Max

 

[DryerLintFan]

I'm an over-planner as well Happy to hear your trip went well up to this point. Following along.

 

[Raven66]

Following along. Enjoying it!! In all of our trips we have never seen Illuminations.

 

[amjt660]

Following along. Enjoying it!! In all of our trips we have never seen Illuminations.

Well you will have to fix that one on the next trip!!!

Max