Disney Day 3: Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom



Saturday morning we were up and on the bus bright and early to be at Hollywood Studios when it opened for morning magic hours.  We had Fastpasses for Toy Story, Star Tours and Tower of Terror. Since Jedi Training Academy is on hiatus, we had a lot of flexibility in our schedule.  Our plan was to rope drop Toy Story so we could ride it twice that day.  Unfortunately the ride was down from 8-10 a.m., so we only got to ride it the one time with our pass, and we had to rework our touring plan.  

 

 

This trip was definitely a "growing up" trip for us.  Not only did we ditch the stroller, but William was finally tall enough for the last set of thrill rides:  44 inches to ride Space Mountain and Expedition Everest.   He loved them both!  He also agreed to ride Tower of Terror again (he had done it at 4 1/2 at WDW and at 5 at Disneyland and regretted it!) - twice!

 

 

The weather was hot and steamy, so we were happy to have a lunch reservation at Hollywood Brown Derby to rest our feet and have some delicious food and drink.  I love the super glam look that William is sporting wearing my sunglasses at the table.   On our way out after lunch, John doubled back to get a souvenir Boba Fett mug.  I love this picture almost as much as the R2D2 popcorn bucket picture I got at Disneyland in 2014!

We park hopped to Animal Kingdom just in time for a downpour.  We waited it out in the Photopass shop where we browsed through our pictures from the Halloween party and earlier in the day at Hollywood Studios and shopped for Magic Bandits - little buttons to put on your Magic Band.   No surprise, we walked out with the Star Wars set.

 

 

We did a quick walk around the park to assess lines (too long), ran into a friend from home at one of the Wilderness Explorer activities, and then waited in the standby queue to ride Expedition Everest to much success before heading back to Bay Lake.  The photo below is a little tough to see but the red/orange lights are emergency vehicles evacuating the monorail that broke down.  We ordered pizza to the room and I went to bed early that night so I missed seeing Illuminations at Epcot out our living room window.  That's ok; I enjoyed the sleep!

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party Photopass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disney Day 2: Halloween Party

On Friday, we were finally heading to the parks for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!  We walked over around 3:30 so we would be in by the unofficial party start time of 4 p.m. and get a full 8 hours of party fun!  The beauty of being near the Magic Kingdom was also a curse.  All of that walking (18-24k steps per day according to my Fitbit) was tough on little boy legs.  This was our first non-stroller trip, and although the boys kept up, we certainly didn't power through as late in the evening as if they were ride-alongs!

 

I'll have to post some of our Photopass photos once I download them, but here are some from my camera.  Aiden was a Navy Seal Team 6 member and William was Commander Fox from Star Wars Clone Wars.

 

We rode a lot of rides since the lines were short.  We didn't do any trick-or-treating or characters (except Magician Mickey with a Fastpass before the official party start) since those lines were atrocious.   The parade and fireworks were both great!  The weather was super hot, so the candy corn soft serve ice cream I bought to eat during the parade had melted all over me by the time I got it back to William. 

I couldn't resist some pictures of It's a Small World, which John thinks is the "creepiest ride."   I'd never noticed there were clown dolls!   But, it truly is a small world. . . .the next day we would run into one of William's schoolmates at Animal Kingdom!

William had his own single bed pullout chair in the living room of our condo, but it was easiest to have him fall asleep in our king bed first and then move him when we were ready to vacate the living room for the evening. 

Disney Day 1: Chef Mickey's

As often as we "do Disney" it has actually been nearly two years since we were at Walt Disney World as a family.   This time we brought our extended family:  Keith, Desiree and Aiden joined us for Aiden's first trip to the Most Magical Place on Earth!  Since we had a group of six, we stayed in a villa at Bay Lake Tower, the Disney Vacation Club arm of the Contemporary Resort.  It was so convenient to have all of us in one condo and to be walking distance to the Magic Kingdom!

 

On arrival day the only event we had planned was the character buffet at Chef Mickey's.  While we were waiting for our table, we saw these two aspiring Minnie Mouses.   It's always fun to people watch at Disney!  And then Mickey and Friends made the rounds at our table for autographs and pictures with the boys. 

 

 

 

Aiden's awesome aviators deserve a special shout out.  Before dinner we rode the monorail to the ticket center to activate William's annual pass. From there we made the quick walk to the Polynesian Resort for a welcome beverage (Lapu Lapu anyone?!) and a spin through the gift shops.  He decided to spend his own money on those glasses and proudly wore them the entire trip.

Epcot Food & Wine Festival

Since I had to be in Orlando for a conference starting on Sunday, I decided to go up a day early to check out the Epcot Food & Wine Festival.   Lucky girl that I am, John asked his mom to come stay with William and joined me!   We have a fun two-days exploring with "adult Disney."  We stayed at the Boardwalk Villas which are right behind the Epcot International Gateway, so it was a quick walk from our hotel to start drinking and tasting our way around the world! 

Crowds were pretty bad on Saturday mid-afternoon when we arrived, so after just a few stops, we took the monorail and then the ferry to get to Magic Kingdom.  It was already decked out in its Halloween finest.  

I FINALLY got to have the spicy chicken waffle sandwich I had been coveting for years.   Verdict: it was only ok.  But the view!  Afterwards John and I split up because I had a date with Elsa and Anna!  They signed a Christmas ornament with their likeness for William.  He was *mostly* impressed with this as a souvenir from Mommy's business trip.

 

For dinner we retired to California Grill's lounge and enjoyed cocktails and delicious entrees with this view.

After dinner, we walked back to the Magic Kingdom for the fireworks show since we had Fastpasses for the viewing area.  It wasn't super crowded that day, but it was nice to not have to stake out a space early.

Sunday we got up bright and early and headed to Epcot.  Ok, not really.  For the first time ever at Disney, we slept in!  We headed to France when it opened at 11 and enjoyed a slushy and crème brulee as our breakfast of champions!

We returned to the Magic Kingdom in the afternoon for our Fastpass for the Festival of Fantasy parade which was new since our last WDW trip.  As with all plans on this trip, John was good to humor me since he was joining my already scheduled itinerary.  He hates parades but he sat with me in the beating sun to watch this one! 

 

We had a late dinner back at our hotel before sadly transferring to the conference center hotel off property to grab a little sleep before beginning a week of training - or in John's case, to catch a 6 a.m. flight home!