Claire AndradeHappy Friday! I’m back with part two of our vacation recap. (If you missed part one you can see that here.) Today is all about Disney World! Yes this was my second trip in two months but it was Miguel’s first time there and I was pumped to experience it with him.
Tuesday
We were all up bright and early Tuesday with all of our stuff to drive to Disney from Sarasota. We hit some traffic and were a ~little~ later than we had planned but we dropped off the car at the resort we were staying at (Pop Century) and hopped on a bus to Magic Kingdom!
I did a lot of planning of which rides we were going to go to first and both of our first picks were down for maintenance when we got there, wahh. It was fine though and we still got a lot of rides in. I think it does help to plan and have a game plan because I think you can get more into a day if you do so but it’s also important to be able to roll with the punches because you never know with Disney!
It got up to over 100 degrees this day but we Disney-ed hard and got a ton of rides in. We also ate at Be Our Guest for lunch. It was our first time there but I loved it. We had an 11:30 reservation and lunch is seat yourself and we were early enough to get a really great table in a quiet corner. We loved this restaurant! We got more rides in after lunch plus some shopping on the way out.
Then it was time to head to head back to the resort and get into our rooms and change/clean up for dinner. We had reservations at Ohana at the Polynesian Resort (our favorite Disney Resort). We were celebrating my dad’s birthday this night. They bring you so much food (it’s family style) but it was all so good. We even had a view out the window to the Magic Kingdom fireworks right as we were finishing up which was awesome.
Wednesday
The next day was Animal Kingdom day! We wanted to be at the parks early to ride Flight of Passage (since it was impossible to get Fast Passes for). We still had to wait but only about an hour and a half I would say. It was my third time riding and it’s still pretty awesome. Then we rode the Navi River Journey and walked through the Jungle Trek before lunch which we had reservations at Yak and Yeti. I’m gonna be honest, I was least excited about this reservation (there aren’t a lot of sit down options in Animal Kingdom) but I think this ended up being one of my favorites for food! The appetizers were so good and I had Chicken Tikka Masala that I’m still thinking about… I want to go back there for sure!!
After lunch we had Safari Fast Passes, we saw Festival of the Lion King, we rode Dinosaur and Expedition Everest (Miguel and Matt went twice on this one). We were getting super hot and tired at this point so we decided to head back to the hotel. But on the way out we saw Kevin and I was SO excited I was able to grab a quick pic with him (he doesn’t really stop so this was just by luck).
This was actually the last day for my Dad, step-mom, sister and her boyfriend – they headed back to Sarasota but Miguel and I still had a couple more days at Disney. We cleaned up for dinner and headed to the Grand Floridian for our reservation at 1900 Park Fare. The buffet food was actually super good and we enjoyed it.
This was a character dinner with Cinderella, and I may have “forgotten” to mention to Miguel that there would be characters that came to our tables and talked to us and asked for photos… oops lol. He was a little jumpy when a step-sister came up behind him.
After dinner we headed back to Magic Kingdom because we didn’t get to ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train the day before (it was closed and then like a two hour wait). It said 90 minutes for a wait but we only waited 25 (score) and then we rode the People Mover through Tomorrowland and caught a glimpse of the fireworks show on the way out. Which is SO GOOD by the way. I love the new show.
Thursday
The next day we were up bright an early to head to the Boardwalk to have breakfast at Trattoria al Forno. (Another character breakfast). Then we were able to walk to Epcot from there.
We basically walked onto Frozen with no wait (score) and then did every other ride in Epcot. We had Coral Reef lunch reservations which is one of my favorite restaurants because of the big aquarium and we had a great table right next to the glass. The food was phenomenal as well. (We had the deluxe dining plan which was SO MUCH food, one appetizer, entree and dessert per person + a drink, we decided we don’t need that much ever again lol)
After one more ride, we decided to head back to the hotel and jump in the pool in an attempt to cool off (we did this instead of walking around the countries, which I love to do but it was just way too hot and I felt like I was losing Miguel a little bit). But going to the pool was a great idea and I’m really glad we did that instead.
We headed back to Epcot for dinner though at Hacienda San Angel in Mexico (we did walk through the Mexican pavilion as well). We got our Mexican food fix and then went back to the hotel for bed.
Oh- our room was in the 50’s section on the Pop Century Resort and we had a view of the lake and we could see Hollywood Studio’s and Epcot’s fireworks from outside out room! I loved our location.
Friday
Friday was our last park day and it was Hollywood Studios day! We got to the park for rope drop and headed straight to Slinky Dog dash to beat the crowds (and only waited about 25 minutes). Then we did Toy Story Mania which actually ended up being one of our favorite rides lol it was so fun! We watched the Frozen sing along, got our picture with Mickey and ate lunch at Sci-Fi Drive In which is one of my favorites as well because you sit in a cute little car.
After lunch we had Rockin Rollercoaster Fast Passes and lets just say that right before we were gonna get on, Miguel was not feeling well (to say it nicely)… and we did not make it on that ride because we had to run out of there ASAP. We didn’t go on any other ride and decided to just go to Disney Springs where our dinner reservation was.
We had a little bit of a journey to get there by bus but we did our shopping and picked out our souvenirs to kill time. We were supposed to eat dinner there as well but Miguel ended up not feeling well again so we just went back to the hotel so I could use my last meal credit.
We were actually checked out already because we were going to stay at a hotel at the airport to be ready for our flight the next day, so I ate in the food court and we grabbed our bags and we got a Lyft to the other hotel. Luckily I talked Miguel into getting a meal from the food court to go so he could eat later and good thing I did because the turkey and mashed potatoes I got for him were excellent. Like maybe one of the best meals on the trip lol.
Saturday
Saturday we woke up and headed to the airport and flew home. We were happy to be home around noon. We were so tired though. We both accidentally fell asleep at around 7:30 that night lol. We needed the sleep apparently!
Vacation always go by so quickly but I’m glad I am able to document them and recap them to keep for memories forever. Disney is one of my favorite places in the world and as soon as I leave I am already dreaming of my next trip. Although the ending was a little rough and not everything went as planned it’s okay because so many things went well and we had a great time. I can’t wait to go back!
Thanks for making it through this LONG post – if you have any Disney related questions for me please enter them below and I will be answering them in a post soon!
Thanks for reading through my recaps and catching up!
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