DisneyDaddy17
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2018
Hello Fellow DIS’ers!!!!!
My family and I just returned back to Dallas, TX from WDW last night! Disney was pretty CROWDED over the weekend (despite what most would think since it February), but hey this is WDW so I wasn't ENTIRELY surprised!! Haha My Family in attendance consisted of a party of 9 Adults and 1 child, we were celebrating my DS's 1st Birthday & 2 wedding anniversaries!!! We stayed on property at the Art of Animation resort, we had 2 days’ worth of Park Hopper Passes, and the AWESOME Deluxe Dinning plans (WE EAT A LOT! Haha). We mostly utilized the Buses at WDW, I did however request Uber cars for some of the PRIORITY ADR’s we had planned that we simply COULD NOT miss! (Uber has an amazing CAR SEAT option on their XL cars at WDW, which was sooo great for our family, as we were traveling with a 1 year old!) We also took advantage of the Memory Maker PhotoPass Package I had PRE PURCHASED for $170, with the occasions we were celebrating, and my DS being so young. We wanted the whole family in our Disney Park’s Photos! (Plus the quality of the PhotoPass pictures are GREAT, and the convenience of downloading them from the MDE App is OUTSTANDING!!!)
Friday 2/16/18:
As soon as we landed in Orlando MRC Airport (9am) we took the Magic Express to AoA Resort, we left some of our bags, took the baby in his stroller, and Hit the parks. The crowds at AK were relatively tame, we started with a Breakfast ADR at Tusker House ROL then made our way to Expedition Everest for a FP+ we had reserved. Next we were excited to check out PANDORA for the 1st time since it was constructed. The lines were CRAZY long!! For the FOP Stand by (I remember a 240 minute [4 HOURS!] wait at one point on Friday!
) and this is all before 1pm. We had FP+'s so the wait was closer to 40 minutes for 2 adults in our party. Na'vi River Journey was the Usual 1-2 hour Stand by with a 10 minute FP+ queue, so that was VERY pleasant!!
Hollywood Studios was busy but we did not spend much time there on Friday. We ate some Mickey Bars (The EARS taste sooo good!) Since it was a relatively WARM day (85 Degrees) with a strong Florida Sun beaming down on us, and our baby we welcomed some ICE COLD treats! We took advantage of the PhotoPass CM’s around the park, and took some really great family picture with our DS! Star Wars Launch Bay & Jedi Trials did look to be pretty busy with guests. The whole Star Wars area at DHS is new to us, so I am not sure what is "Normally" considered busy or not. We did not ride any other rides at DHS as the baby started getting ready for his nap time, so we headed back to AoA to get ready for our dinner ADR at Teppan Edo in Epcot!
Epcot we only went to for a Dinner time ADR at Teppan Edo in the Japan pavilion, the park seem to have a moderate level of people in attendance (I would gauge it at maybe a 6/7). We watched a little of the IllumiNations Fireworks show at 9pm, but we had to leave in order to make it to our Teppan Edo ADR! By the time we left Teppan Edo, Epcot was closed so I do not have much other information on the park for that day....
Saturday 2/17/18
We had arranged for a birthday breakfast for my DS at Chef Mickey's with a Custom Cake to be served during our meal! The result was BETTER than I could have ever imagined for my Son’s 1St birthday!!! Our family then headed to Magic Kingdom, where there were many LARGE groups (100+) of what looked to be High School Students on what I would assume were "Senior Year Trips" from international countries (Central/South America, Europe) in attendance! I am not sure if this is usually the case around this time of year or if it happens year round, but I had not read anything in the DIS forums regarding when to expect these Large groups so we were a little caught off guard. They were having a great time & were a very lively brunch of kids, however the groups of students walking together did significantly add to the walking traffic around the MK Park.
We then had a lunch time ADR at Crystal Palace for Winnie the Pooh and Friends (which was Fantastic!!!) and we were able to see all the characters and get a great meal and still have time to line up for the 3pm Festival of Fans Parade right outside in the Main St. Plaza.
We walked around and purchased some MK Main Street “must haves” Mickey Balloons, Emporium Merchandise/Souvenirs, and of course the popular KITCHEN SINK at the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor! (DELISHIOUS!!!). For the rides at MK, we had FP+'s for SDMT, the FP queue was almost an HOUR wait, the Standby was upwards of 2 1/2 hours. Space Mountain kept shutting down sporadically throughout the day Saturday (we didn't even attempt to stand in that line) because we wanted to experience as much of the MK park as possible in 1 day. We took tons of PhotoPass pictures all over the park and did some Baby friendly rides with my DS such as Tomorrowland PeopleMover, Dumbo, WDW Railroad Train, Monster Inc, Hall of Presidents (They had A TRUMP animatronic robot! I was like whaaaaat???), PeterPan, Prince Charming Carrousel, Mickey Philharmagic, and OF COARSE Pirates of the Caribbean! All of these ride are pretty chill for babies so the queues were relatively short (~20 minutes) so were tried to focus our efforts there!!!
We were done just in time to get a decent spot for the Happily Ever After Fireworks show (which made DW so emotional she burst into tears! Lol) and then we fished off the day with an ADR at the World Famous CINDERELLA’S ROYAL TABLE!! Our family really enjoyed CRT, we were however exhausted from the action packed day we just had. We did our best to conjure up any energy we had left to make it through dinner with out any incidents or meltdowns from our DS. (He actually REALLY loved Princess Jasmine, like couldn’t take his eyes off of her! Haha.) Over all we stayed about 14 Hours at Magic Kingdom in order to accomplish all of this! (It was exhausting but hey, these are memories we will cherish for the rest of our lives!!!)
Sunday 2/18/18
We were pretty tired from the previous day (understandably so!) and we really wanted to check out the area at Disney Springs. (Since it has been remodeled since our last visit to WDW, It was still called Downtown Disney back then! Haha). We had a Brunch ADR for Morimoto Asia which was a VERY TASTY selection of Traditional Japanese dishes, and craft cocktails! (Peking Duck and the Half Rack Ribs OMG! They were the BEST!) We did a couple hours of shopping at the Disney Stores for souvenirs, and had to return to the resort for our Magic Express bus taking us back to Orlando Airport by 4pm!
Over all Disney was a great experience! I would definitely come back during the month of February again! I will try and post our pictures from our trip to show y’all some of the highlights once I get around to unloading them from my GoPro and the PhotoPass App!!!
Please Let me know what you think about our trip or how you think we did on our VACAY!!!
Thank you all for reading this incredibly LONG post!!!!
Best,
DisneyDaddy17
My family and I just returned back to Dallas, TX from WDW last night! Disney was pretty CROWDED over the weekend (despite what most would think since it February), but hey this is WDW so I wasn't ENTIRELY surprised!! Haha My Family in attendance consisted of a party of 9 Adults and 1 child, we were celebrating my DS's 1st Birthday & 2 wedding anniversaries!!! We stayed on property at the Art of Animation resort, we had 2 days’ worth of Park Hopper Passes, and the AWESOME Deluxe Dinning plans (WE EAT A LOT! Haha). We mostly utilized the Buses at WDW, I did however request Uber cars for some of the PRIORITY ADR’s we had planned that we simply COULD NOT miss! (Uber has an amazing CAR SEAT option on their XL cars at WDW, which was sooo great for our family, as we were traveling with a 1 year old!) We also took advantage of the Memory Maker PhotoPass Package I had PRE PURCHASED for $170, with the occasions we were celebrating, and my DS being so young. We wanted the whole family in our Disney Park’s Photos! (Plus the quality of the PhotoPass pictures are GREAT, and the convenience of downloading them from the MDE App is OUTSTANDING!!!)
Friday 2/16/18:
As soon as we landed in Orlando MRC Airport (9am) we took the Magic Express to AoA Resort, we left some of our bags, took the baby in his stroller, and Hit the parks. The crowds at AK were relatively tame, we started with a Breakfast ADR at Tusker House ROL then made our way to Expedition Everest for a FP+ we had reserved. Next we were excited to check out PANDORA for the 1st time since it was constructed. The lines were CRAZY long!! For the FOP Stand by (I remember a 240 minute [4 HOURS!] wait at one point on Friday!
Hollywood Studios was busy but we did not spend much time there on Friday. We ate some Mickey Bars (The EARS taste sooo good!) Since it was a relatively WARM day (85 Degrees) with a strong Florida Sun beaming down on us, and our baby we welcomed some ICE COLD treats! We took advantage of the PhotoPass CM’s around the park, and took some really great family picture with our DS! Star Wars Launch Bay & Jedi Trials did look to be pretty busy with guests. The whole Star Wars area at DHS is new to us, so I am not sure what is "Normally" considered busy or not. We did not ride any other rides at DHS as the baby started getting ready for his nap time, so we headed back to AoA to get ready for our dinner ADR at Teppan Edo in Epcot!
Epcot we only went to for a Dinner time ADR at Teppan Edo in the Japan pavilion, the park seem to have a moderate level of people in attendance (I would gauge it at maybe a 6/7). We watched a little of the IllumiNations Fireworks show at 9pm, but we had to leave in order to make it to our Teppan Edo ADR! By the time we left Teppan Edo, Epcot was closed so I do not have much other information on the park for that day....
Saturday 2/17/18
We had arranged for a birthday breakfast for my DS at Chef Mickey's with a Custom Cake to be served during our meal! The result was BETTER than I could have ever imagined for my Son’s 1St birthday!!! Our family then headed to Magic Kingdom, where there were many LARGE groups (100+) of what looked to be High School Students on what I would assume were "Senior Year Trips" from international countries (Central/South America, Europe) in attendance! I am not sure if this is usually the case around this time of year or if it happens year round, but I had not read anything in the DIS forums regarding when to expect these Large groups so we were a little caught off guard. They were having a great time & were a very lively brunch of kids, however the groups of students walking together did significantly add to the walking traffic around the MK Park.
We then had a lunch time ADR at Crystal Palace for Winnie the Pooh and Friends (which was Fantastic!!!) and we were able to see all the characters and get a great meal and still have time to line up for the 3pm Festival of Fans Parade right outside in the Main St. Plaza.
We walked around and purchased some MK Main Street “must haves” Mickey Balloons, Emporium Merchandise/Souvenirs, and of course the popular KITCHEN SINK at the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor! (DELISHIOUS!!!). For the rides at MK, we had FP+'s for SDMT, the FP queue was almost an HOUR wait, the Standby was upwards of 2 1/2 hours. Space Mountain kept shutting down sporadically throughout the day Saturday (we didn't even attempt to stand in that line) because we wanted to experience as much of the MK park as possible in 1 day. We took tons of PhotoPass pictures all over the park and did some Baby friendly rides with my DS such as Tomorrowland PeopleMover, Dumbo, WDW Railroad Train, Monster Inc, Hall of Presidents (They had A TRUMP animatronic robot! I was like whaaaaat???), PeterPan, Prince Charming Carrousel, Mickey Philharmagic, and OF COARSE Pirates of the Caribbean! All of these ride are pretty chill for babies so the queues were relatively short (~20 minutes) so were tried to focus our efforts there!!!
We were done just in time to get a decent spot for the Happily Ever After Fireworks show (which made DW so emotional she burst into tears! Lol) and then we fished off the day with an ADR at the World Famous CINDERELLA’S ROYAL TABLE!! Our family really enjoyed CRT, we were however exhausted from the action packed day we just had. We did our best to conjure up any energy we had left to make it through dinner with out any incidents or meltdowns from our DS. (He actually REALLY loved Princess Jasmine, like couldn’t take his eyes off of her! Haha.) Over all we stayed about 14 Hours at Magic Kingdom in order to accomplish all of this! (It was exhausting but hey, these are memories we will cherish for the rest of our lives!!!)
Sunday 2/18/18
We were pretty tired from the previous day (understandably so!) and we really wanted to check out the area at Disney Springs. (Since it has been remodeled since our last visit to WDW, It was still called Downtown Disney back then! Haha). We had a Brunch ADR for Morimoto Asia which was a VERY TASTY selection of Traditional Japanese dishes, and craft cocktails! (Peking Duck and the Half Rack Ribs OMG! They were the BEST!) We did a couple hours of shopping at the Disney Stores for souvenirs, and had to return to the resort for our Magic Express bus taking us back to Orlando Airport by 4pm!
Over all Disney was a great experience! I would definitely come back during the month of February again! I will try and post our pictures from our trip to show y’all some of the highlights once I get around to unloading them from my GoPro and the PhotoPass App!!!
Please Let me know what you think about our trip or how you think we did on our VACAY!!!
Thank you all for reading this incredibly LONG post!!!!
Best,
DisneyDaddy17
