We left for the World on Monday, June 29. Our day started at 4:30am because we had a 2 hour drive to the airport, where we met my daughter and her husband. The flight to Orlando was uneventful except for the hilarious running commentary from the first officer on our plane. We arrived around 1:30pm and we were at Port Orleans, Riverside by 2:30 courtesy of Disney's magical express. Got checked in, which was easy, as I had done the online check in before we left home. We were hungry so off to the Old Mill food court we went. After eating we went back to the room and our luggage had been delivered. We decided we would spend our first evening at the Magic Kingdom, so off we went.
The crowds were not bad at all. We rode every attraction we wanted to without much wait. We stayed to watch Wishes which was as fantastic as ever. I also got to watch my all time favorite parade Spectromagic. Back to the room for some shut eye.
Tuesday we went to Epcot. We did Soaring, Turtle Talk with Crush, Spaceship Earth & spent a lot of time in one of my favorite stores, Mouse Gear. That store is a Disney geeks delight. We also had to dodge the rain most of the time we were there. We had our ponchos, so we kept doing what we wanted to do. That evening we went to Downtown Disney. Had dinner at the Trex restaurant which was kind of cool, literally, we were seated in what they called the Ice Cave. There were several different themed seating areas representing the Dinosaur age. Dinner was okay. Did some shopping and I got to spend time in my other favorite Disney store, The World of Disney. I could spend hours in this store just looking around. Shopped at some of the other stores, then took the boat ride back to Port Orleans on the Sassagoula river.
Wednesday morning it was off to Hollywood Studios. As soon as we got there we went straight to Toy Story Mania and got a fast pass. We then jumped in the standby line and waited about thirty minutes to ride it. I never gone through the queue and I wanted to see Mr. Potato Head. That was really cool how he interacted with guests in line. We also did Rockin Roller Coaster & Tower of Terror, which is my son in laws favorite ride. We did some shopping, ate lunch at the Back lot Express and used our Toy Story fast passes. We headed back to the resort for some rest and time by the pool. Later, after dinner at the French Quarter food court we went back to Hollywood Studios for the evening. We rode Star Wars, the great movie ride, spent time in Disney Animation where we got to see lots of stuff about the movie UP. We also did The Little Mermaid show and of course two more times on the Tower of Terror before the day was over.
Thursday was Animal Kingdom day. We started the morning with breakfast at Boma in the Animal Kingdom lodge. This is something my wife and I had done several times before and really really enjoyed it, so we wanted the kids to get to do as well. I can not say enough about how good the buffet is. If you leave this one hungry it your own fault. After breakfast we caught the bus to the Animal Kingdom. We got fast passes for Expedition Everest then got in the stand by line and rode it. We then went and watched Finding Nemo the musical. We walked back to Expedition Everest to use our fast passes, but the ride was shutdown due to the weather. We were told they had no idea how long the ride would shut down, so we decided not to wait and walked the trail to see the Bengal tigers and the other animals. Once we had done this, we went back towards the entrance and did some shopping and the n headed back to Port Orleans. Animal Kingdom for us, is only about a half day park. We went to Epcot later that evening so we could watch Illuminations, which we have always enjoyed. Did Test Track after Illuminations then went back to get some shut eye.
More to follow in the next post
Thanks for reading.
Til next time, run strong & enjoy the moment.
