I'm not the greatest at orienting myself right after a vacation but will try my best. We had such a wonderful time but my memories are already fogging up. Our drive was during the beginnings of the flooding that occured in the Carolinas but we made it down by driving through unaffected areas. It was heart breaking to see the flooding on the news later on 
Friday: We head out at 4pm. That turned out to be a good decision. It was a very smooth trip and allowed us to drive through big cities at low traffic times. It was exhausting and hard on our bodies to drive down but worth it to me. Our 5 year old was very well behaved given the circumstance. We drove through western Virginia and into the Asheville NC/western SC area. It was sunny in many of those regions despite what was to come.We were able to get back onto 95 somewhere in SC. We didn't encounter any heavy rains at all so my guess is that we might have passed by before it happened? We were so thankful when we arrived safely.
Saturday night : We arrived at French quarter around 10pm. It was still a pretty hopping place at that time and the parking lots were surprisingly packed. We were roomed on the first floor in building 7. We ordered a pizza for our room and went right to sleep.
Sunday : We purchased an extra day at the last minute so we spent sunday hanging around the gorgeous resort. My heart swelled watching the joy on my son's face at the kiddie splash park. We ate at the FQ quick service for lunch and Boatwright's for dinner. It was my son's birthday and everyone kept wishing him a happy birthday from the groundskeepers to bus drivers. He never connected that they saw his birthday button which made it extra fun. It was quite lovely. It was a nice relaxing day. We took a boat ride to Disney springs too which was nice.
Monday: Epcot was our first park. We had a fast pass for test track but it was down so we tried our luck with the Frozen stand by line. It was so cool although my son never ended up loving the indoor dark rides. Test track was still down after that so we did the stand by line for Soarin. It was about 30 minutes. This is still my favorite ride at Disney world and it didn't disappoint. I got teary near the end with the finale scene at Disney. My son was howling laughing at the polar bears and camels. We also did nemo, figment and spaceship earth. We did test track later on which was great. We ate lunch at Via Napoli which was amazing. They were so sweet to our son and the waiter was awesome. He took our son over to watch the pizza flipping. We took a mid day break but the whole day was at Epcot. It was really fun. We ate dinner at the Mexico QS (yummmm) and our son played with his Inside out figure set at the hotel. We had him meet joy and sadness but he was very shy. Hee hee.
Tuesday: Halloween party day. Magic kingdom was very busy and a little stressful. The heat was intense and our son was a bit irritable for most of the morning. We managed to get onto pirates and splash mountain which he didn't like but we were glad he tried. We took a mid day break and ended up losing our afternoon 7D fast passes because the buses were delayed. It was poor planning on our part and I don't think my son would have liked it. I just wish I had known early enough to offer them up to someone else. He liked Dumbo and the magic carpet. He loved jungle cruise and the skipper was very funny. The Halloween party was too much chaos for us. We were already tired and it was extremely busy. I think we would have skipped this party if we knew. Kiddo loved getting candy and that was really special. Lines were still pretty long so we called it a night after the fireworks. We weren't ready for that We ate dinner at pinnochio village haus (delicious caprese flatbread) and lunch at jungle navigation. Kiddo also devoured a dole whip pineapple upside down cake. We enjoyed the Halloween fireworks very much and the decorations were great. Kiddo fell asleep in his stroller and on the bus. Many kids on the bus were sleeping too.
Wednesday: animal kingdom! We had a really good time here. We all loved the safari and saw many animals considering how hot it was. I was surprised to see to see that they changed the adventure part of the ride but I didn't mind. We saw all the animals and even watched an ostrich run for the hills across the road. We ate lunch at flame tree bbq. We enjoyed navi river journey and river rapids. My son didn't care for the effects at the tough to be a bug show but he continued to be a good sport by trying everything. We left to rest and came back for the rivers of light. That was beautiful. Then we ate at rainforest cafe and had the bus home all to ourselves after. Clever trick. It was a perfect day.
Thursday: We were scheduled to be at magic kingdom again but nervous about how it went earlier in the week. We had a dining reservation there at Tony's so we decided to go later in the morning and see how it goes. It was projected to be way busier than Tuesday on the crowd calendar but it seemed less. That could be because everyone was more spread out by then. We did Winnie the pooh, pirates again, jungle cruise again, and Astor orbiters. We took an after lunch break and ended our night at Epcot. We ate at the China QS and my son was obsessed with the lychee ice cream. We went on Soarin one last time which meant a lot to me. I'm spacing on what else we did...
Friday: our final day was a combo of Hollywood studios and animal kingdom. We did rope drop at Hollywood. Knowing we couldn't brave the new toy story wait lines, we were able to get on toy story mania two times in a row before the wait time dramatically increased. We ate at Mama Melrose and did the Muppets 3D. We also met Olaf. We didn't have time to do much so we went to animal kingdom where the bus driver led the bus to sing happy birthday to my son. So sweet and special. My husband went on flight of passage while the rest of us did navi river journey. We did another great safari. We had a fast pass for river rapids which was the longest fast pass line we experienced (I'd guess 30 minutes). It was getting desperately hot in the line but worth the wait because we all got drenched! We had a nice group of people with us which by made it even more fun. We ended the night at the pool which my son loved and walked over to POR QS for dinner.
Saturday: we left shortly before check out. We drove through 95 and branched off before the detour towards Greensboro NC to stop for dinner. There were some flooding spots we noticed but the worst of the weather there had obviously passed. Even through the detour, we noticed some minor flooding aftermath. I can't imagine what the worst of it was like. My heart goes to those affected by this storm. We arrived home faster because we didn't have to drive west as much. We made it home in one piece around 1pm Sunday. Thank you to those who inspired me to still go. It was the best week I've had in years! Disney has never let me down.
Friday: We head out at 4pm. That turned out to be a good decision. It was a very smooth trip and allowed us to drive through big cities at low traffic times. It was exhausting and hard on our bodies to drive down but worth it to me. Our 5 year old was very well behaved given the circumstance. We drove through western Virginia and into the Asheville NC/western SC area. It was sunny in many of those regions despite what was to come.We were able to get back onto 95 somewhere in SC. We didn't encounter any heavy rains at all so my guess is that we might have passed by before it happened? We were so thankful when we arrived safely.
Saturday night : We arrived at French quarter around 10pm. It was still a pretty hopping place at that time and the parking lots were surprisingly packed. We were roomed on the first floor in building 7. We ordered a pizza for our room and went right to sleep.
Sunday : We purchased an extra day at the last minute so we spent sunday hanging around the gorgeous resort. My heart swelled watching the joy on my son's face at the kiddie splash park. We ate at the FQ quick service for lunch and Boatwright's for dinner. It was my son's birthday and everyone kept wishing him a happy birthday from the groundskeepers to bus drivers. He never connected that they saw his birthday button which made it extra fun. It was quite lovely. It was a nice relaxing day. We took a boat ride to Disney springs too which was nice.
Monday: Epcot was our first park. We had a fast pass for test track but it was down so we tried our luck with the Frozen stand by line. It was so cool although my son never ended up loving the indoor dark rides. Test track was still down after that so we did the stand by line for Soarin. It was about 30 minutes. This is still my favorite ride at Disney world and it didn't disappoint. I got teary near the end with the finale scene at Disney. My son was howling laughing at the polar bears and camels. We also did nemo, figment and spaceship earth. We did test track later on which was great. We ate lunch at Via Napoli which was amazing. They were so sweet to our son and the waiter was awesome. He took our son over to watch the pizza flipping. We took a mid day break but the whole day was at Epcot. It was really fun. We ate dinner at the Mexico QS (yummmm) and our son played with his Inside out figure set at the hotel. We had him meet joy and sadness but he was very shy. Hee hee.
Tuesday: Halloween party day. Magic kingdom was very busy and a little stressful. The heat was intense and our son was a bit irritable for most of the morning. We managed to get onto pirates and splash mountain which he didn't like but we were glad he tried. We took a mid day break and ended up losing our afternoon 7D fast passes because the buses were delayed. It was poor planning on our part and I don't think my son would have liked it. I just wish I had known early enough to offer them up to someone else. He liked Dumbo and the magic carpet. He loved jungle cruise and the skipper was very funny. The Halloween party was too much chaos for us. We were already tired and it was extremely busy. I think we would have skipped this party if we knew. Kiddo loved getting candy and that was really special. Lines were still pretty long so we called it a night after the fireworks. We weren't ready for that
We ate dinner at pinnochio village haus (delicious caprese flatbread) and lunch at jungle navigation. Kiddo also devoured a dole whip pineapple upside down cake. We enjoyed the Halloween fireworks very much and the decorations were great. Kiddo fell asleep in his stroller and on the bus. Many kids on the bus were sleeping too. Wednesday: animal kingdom! We had a really good time here. We all loved the safari and saw many animals considering how hot it was. I was surprised to see to see that they changed the adventure part of the ride but I didn't mind. We saw all the animals and even watched an ostrich run for the hills across the road. We ate lunch at flame tree bbq. We enjoyed navi river journey and river rapids. My son didn't care for the effects at the tough to be a bug show but he continued to be a good sport by trying everything. We left to rest and came back for the rivers of light. That was beautiful. Then we ate at rainforest cafe and had the bus home all to ourselves after. Clever trick. It was a perfect day.
Thursday: We were scheduled to be at magic kingdom again but nervous about how it went earlier in the week. We had a dining reservation there at Tony's so we decided to go later in the morning and see how it goes. It was projected to be way busier than Tuesday on the crowd calendar but it seemed less. That could be because everyone was more spread out by then. We did Winnie the pooh, pirates again, jungle cruise again, and Astor orbiters. We took an after lunch break and ended our night at Epcot. We ate at the China QS and my son was obsessed with the lychee ice cream. We went on Soarin one last time which meant a lot to me. I'm spacing on what else we did...
Friday: our final day was a combo of Hollywood studios and animal kingdom. We did rope drop at Hollywood. Knowing we couldn't brave the new toy story wait lines, we were able to get on toy story mania two times in a row before the wait time dramatically increased. We ate at Mama Melrose and did the Muppets 3D. We also met Olaf. We didn't have time to do much so we went to animal kingdom where the bus driver led the bus to sing happy birthday to my son. So sweet and special. My husband went on flight of passage while the rest of us did navi river journey. We did another great safari. We had a fast pass for river rapids which was the longest fast pass line we experienced (I'd guess 30 minutes). It was getting desperately hot in the line but worth the wait because we all got drenched! We had a nice group of people with us which by made it even more fun. We ended the night at the pool which my son loved and walked over to POR QS for dinner.
Saturday: we left shortly before check out. We drove through 95 and branched off before the detour towards Greensboro NC to stop for dinner. There were some flooding spots we noticed but the worst of the weather there had obviously passed. Even through the detour, we noticed some minor flooding aftermath. I can't imagine what the worst of it was like. My heart goes to those affected by this storm. We arrived home faster because we didn't have to drive west as much. We made it home in one piece around 1pm Sunday. Thank you to those who inspired me to still go. It was the best week I've had in years! Disney has never let me down.
