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WDW Day 6!

I slept a solid almost 11 hours last night, and it was so good!

This morning our first port of call was a Disney Vacation Club viewing; we had been talked into going by a representative in Epcot a few days ago, and were mainly in it for the free food, Fastpasses and $50 Disney gift card! Don’t get me wrong though, it was interesting to look at!

From there, we headed outlet shopping at Orlando Premier Outlets, about a 10 minute taxi ride away, and snagged some mega bargains, including new Asics trainers and some Vinylmation from Disney’s Character Warehouse. After dropping our haul back at the resort, we caught the boat to Disney Springs for lunch and the Cool Down Party.

The Cool Down Party is basically a bunch of the stores and restaurants in Disney Springs doing discounts and special offers for anyone who ran this weekend, so long as you wear your medal! This meant we got 10% off lunch at T-REX, and I also got 15% off some goodies from Basin, yay!

Still with plenty of the afternoon ahead, we decided to catch a bus to the Walt Disney World Swan hotel, then the boat from there to Hollywood Studios, as we’ve never done that before, and we had no idea how quick a ride it was! Straight away we headed to Rock’n’Roller Coaster, and passed the hour wait using our DVC Fastpasses, then we managed to catch the last showing of Indiana Jones Stunt Show Spectacular, getting to see some of the scenes we had missed the other day.

After that we did another Star Tours, and as luck would have it, the wait time for Toy Story Midway Mania was only 25 minutes, so obviously we were all over that, and in fact, we only waited maybe 5. With a little bit of time until the fireworks, we went back to the Star Wars Launch Bay to watch the film showing we had skipped before, then headed out to get a good view of the Symphony in the Stars fireworks.

Wow. I might go as far as saying it was the best firework display Disney has ever imagineered. Just phenomenal, the way they synced the fireworks to the music and how each rocket represented something.. I could go on but I won’t!

Instead I’m going to bed, goodnight!

PS. No photos from today, too busy seeing through my own two eyes!

January 11, 2016Lottie Leave a comment

Day 4: Animal Kingdom, and a little Downtown Disney

Finally getting adjusted to the time difference, wahey!

Today we tripped it over to the Animal Kingdom first thing to take advantage of Extra Magic hours, so we got into the park around 8.30 before it opened to the public at 9am. This was perfect timing as it meant we could dash over to Expedition Everest, which we hadn’t managed to get a Fastpass for, and queued for less than 5 minutes as the park was almost empty! So empty in fact, we rode it twice a) cos we knew it’d be a long wait if we came back later, and b) because it was awesome!

By the end of our second go it was just coming up 9 so we shot across to the Kali River Rapids just as it opened and managed to sneak another incredibly lucky short wait. The ride comes with the warning ‘You will get wet, you may get soaked!’ and well, soaked is what we got..

Like, literally wringing out clothes sort of soaked.

We then wandered across to Africa and completed the Pangani trail before out Kilimanjaro Safari Fastpass then after a quick shopping break got in line for The Festival of the Lion King performance. This 30 minute tribute to the Lion King was a great production (full review to follow) involving acrobats, floats and live singers.

Lunch was at Tusker House (table service), another Advanced Dining Reservation, which we’d originally booked just based on a recommendation from a friend of the great food, but it actually turned out to be a character meal as well, so we dined with Mickey, Donald, Daisy and Goofy, all kitted out in their safari gear! Food lived up to its reputation, and the atmosphere was great.

Lunch was followed by another show, this time Finding Nemo, the Musical. Similar to the traditional Lion King Musical, the show was done in large scale puppetry, with live singers, and was an excellent condensed (40 minutes) version of the film. The puppets themselves were incredible, but the music lacked the classic Disney catchiness.

From there we finished up our day in Dinoland, and left the park surprisingly early with everything done by around 4/5pm, so we caught a bus across to Downtown Disney for a little look around (NB. No buses ran directly from Animal Kingdom to Downtown Disney, so we had to bus over to the Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort and switch buses there).

First stop, obviously was World of Disney, the largest Disney store in the world, although it didn’t seem overwhelmingly large. Due to the offer we had when we booked our trip, we went to collect out $200 gift cards from the information desk inside, which was a bit of a faff but got there in the end. Our group then split in two for the shopping bit as 9 is too large a group for a smooth shopping experience. Our group got a taxi across to Walmart as well for some essentials before we all re-convened at the resort pool for dinner by the poolside with Tarzan on the big screen, and a quick swim!

Tomorrow we’ll be heading to the fourth and final park, Hollywood Studios!

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