We left Australia on the 14th October at 6am… left home at 4am to get to the airport. Our first flight to Sydney was on a small Embraer 2 seats aisle then 2 seats. It left on time and arrived in Sydney on time. When we got to Sydney we had to move from the domestic airport to the international. This was very trouble free, However Sydney international is currently got some construction going on so it was a very roundabout way to get to our gate from the entrance but we made it with an hour to spare. As we had eaten in Adelaide and had a snack on the plane we didn’t eat… big mistake. Once we had boarded they discovered a problem with a compressor on the plane, we were supposed to depart at 10.50 and ended up leaving at 2.05 and they kept us boarded the whole time. They did however bring extra water and some chips on board to hand out.
Once we eventually left it was another 14 hours until we got to LA… as we were late reaching LA we had no time to clear customs and swap terminals. An airline rep told us they had changed our connecting flight to 10,20 it was 9.30 so I said if I rush we can make it. We had to wait at a special bench in Delta for new tickets and found that our flight was actually at 10.20pm. by this stage I was extremely disappointed. The only alternative flight that could be offered was leaving 2 hours earlier to Tampa so I would need to hire a care and drive to Orlando from there which would have cost me more, got us there maybe half hour earlier and endangered everyone on the road with an Australian who hasn’t slept for 35 hours driving on roads they don’t know so I opted out. So if you want to know anything about terminal 5 in LA we are down with that terminal now.
Eventually we made it to Orlando Landing at 6.05 am we were supposed to be there 5.30pm Wednesday this was Thursday. This really screwed with our plans as I had planned our flights to ensure we could get dinner and be on a new time schedule straight away reducing Jet lag.
So our answer to this was to drag our zombie asses through the shower at our hotel and hop on the 8am bus to AK as we had planned all along.
We went straight in to AK on followed our TP… Expedition Everest was first up as it was so quiet Ethan asked to go again so we fit in 2 rides within 15 minutes…well we’d actually been let into the park early so this allowed us this extra time. Ethan loves this and was amazed how familiar it felt to the matterhorn. We then wandered the trail to KRR Ethan loves water rides so of course loved it. we then decided we should really get my birthday button and first visit buttons before our breakfast at tusker house.
Tusker house breakfast was great we love the interactions and im a big mickey fan so this was important to me. We needed the meal to keep us going and loved the juice. Our server was great and brought me a card and birthday cake
from breakfast we continued to follow our TP going on Dinosaur and exploring some trails. We eventually went on Kilimanjaro safari at around 2.30 and I love animals but could not stay awake and had hit the wall hard so we trekked back to the bus and the hotel I sleep about three hours and let Ethan sleep until 7
Originally I had booked Rainforest Café for tea but had cancelled it while we were waiting in the airport the night before as I wasn’t sure we would make it. So we walked to Disney Springs looked around a little and ate at the food trucks by the characters in flight balloon. eventually wandered back to the hotel and slept some more
Great start already! What a rough way to begin your trip with the long delay at LAX, hope everything else was smooth sailing after that.
Day 2 we headed off to Epcot again catching the 8am bus which got us there in time for opening. Well I held the map they it looked like it was supposed to go to get us to Soarin before the queues formed and ended up over by test track as we walked around the outside we ended up coming back in by figment. This actually got us in trouble with CM’s as that section of the park hadn’t been opened up yet and we were escorted with about 6 other people that did the same thing to where everyone else was waiting to be walked up to the building. We did end up at the front of the group as they walked us to soarin but we had the poor unfit guy in front of us who was calling out to the other CM’s to slow down as he couldn’t keep up.
Anyway we had another great TP for the day we didn’t stick to it completely I swapped figment in to straight after soarin so it was out of the way and still got to mission space orange and test track with low waits. During the day we also added in things like sneaking off for photos with pluto. we also completed some Agent P missions which Ethan loved (he’s 15).
I’ll be honest though that when we eventually got to watch the circle of life film I don’t remember any of it, it excited me so much I napped the whole movie ha ha Ethan woke me up at the end and acknowledge my need for a neep after the day before. I Was a little disappointed with spaceship earth and Ethan was disgusted so much with beverly when we tried that he threw it straight back up. I had to bribe him to love me again with an ice drink.
After a walk around the lands we had a garden grill reservation, we were sat down right on time but as I had investigated meals at 180 I had completely forgotten in turns slowly we had seen characters and eaten half our meal when I realised we weren’t in the same spot anymore. I did find our server a little stand offish but then I found that with most of he servers, im not sure whether its because im a 40 year old hanging with a 15 year old they don’t think we are as excited to be there but we really are!!
We saw all the characters dale especially for some reason made Ethan do the robot with him, it was cracking me up because you could see how embarrassed ethan was but he couldn’t help but indulge him.
the food was great for us. Very filling as we actually don’t normally eat much and I loved the dessert. Our server remembered it was our birthday trip and bought me a cak after we finished which we put in a cup for later as neither of us could eat then.
We then went to mexico as its the only country we hadn’t visited and I was told 15 times I cant have a drink on rides and got lots of surprised reactions when we said it was cake.
After that we looked for a spot for Illuminations as people where starting to bundle up at the fences we found a gap and sat ourselves down.
I tried to take a lot of beautiful pics but I suck at picture taking so I don’t even have 1!!
Once illuminations was over we slowly headed to the exit.
We actually didn’t get involved in any of the food and wine food booths, We were there for the Disney experience so by passed the booths and just enjoyed the everyday things (fyi the aussie booth had my local beer and wines from wineries that are within 10 minutes from home but we would never eat the foods the way they were offered)
On our third day Saturday the 17th October we actually headed to kennedy space centre. Australia obviously has great technology but not the type of history with space and exploration that the US has. I also loved Space Camp in the 80’s ha ha
We were staying at the holiday Inn downtown Disney so walked up and met our bus at the Cross roads at 8.30.
We were driven to the space centre and our driver actually took us through to the Atlantis exhibit straight after we had a meet with the astronaut for the day. The launch simulation ride was amazing but the simulation felt very similar to the feelings we had in mission space orange the day before.
We really enjoyed the bus tour to look at the launching areas and towers and some of the facts they share with you are amazing. We had lunch out in the cafeteria in the middle of the tour while looking over the water at the towers. all in all I learnt a lot but suck at retaining names of areas which is why I keep the map and took photos but I haven’t sorted our maps yet.
we walked back to our hotel after this and then headed to Disney Springs for our t-rex reservation. We absolutely loved t-rex. Our server was amazing and when ethan tried a drink and didn like it he just replaced it. Ethan really enjoyed the atmosphere and talked me into sharing the volcanic dessert so we ate the icecream and saved the cake for later in our room… this was a great night though
day 4 Was sunday, Hollywood studios. Again we relied on our tp and arrived before rope drop so we could get things done.
Our first ride was ToT ethan talks about this as he never wanted to go on but that morning he said im going on so we tried he said for him its a one and done. but he enjoyed the experience
we then went straight over and did the rnr which was great. by the time we walked over to TSM the queue was long but we persisted, by the time it had got got our fastpass day all the toy story ones had been gone so it was something we would have to do
We actually ended up having lunch at pizza planet, I have to say the food we had wasn’t bad its fast food cant expect too much it was quiet upstairs so we headed up and had a relaxing lunch really. One of the random CMS came over and gave me a little bag with the tink light inside and mickey glitter was very sweet.
We saw both action shows, rode star tours and muppets then went to Hollywood and vine for tea
I have to say the hand v dessert counter was a mess people had decided that you could only line up on one side and were getting angry and blocking access to the remainder of the buffet with the line. It was pretty annoying. Ethan oblivious to it all got a few death stares when he walked up from the side we were on and picked his desserts but oh well.
We then rode rnr again and checked out a few shops before going for fantasmic. I loved fantasmic it had been something I was not going to miss as when we went to Disneyland may 07 most of the stuff on the river was closed for the Pirates of Carribean movie premiere they held in the park
sooo Monday we headed to MK. We again got the 8am bus oping to be at the gate by opening. Weeelll that wasn’t going to happen. Our hotel bus drops at the ttc. once we were at the ttc we went past the ticket boxes but were then held at the gates. park opening is 9 right but we actually couldn’t even get to the park by then as thousands of people were not released to either the ferry or monorail until 8.45 then of course not everyone would fit on the monorail or ferry so we had to wait even longer. Eventually we made it to bag check at 9.10 and through gate slightly after. we ended up skipping the first ride on the TP and heading straight for second.
Some waits during the day were a little longer that tp suggested they would be and some spot on. We ended up skipping pan in the afternoon too as line was massive and we were going to be back the next day before the Halloween party on a quieter day so I thought we’d try it then
We ended up at pinocchios for dinner. this meal again was fine I know others might not be as forgiving but its an amusement park so not expecting too much when we just walk in somewhere for a random meal.
we then went to the mine train, this was the worst wait of trip. we had been waiting 30 minutes when they announced that the ride had gone down so ended up waiting over an hour. After already having waited we just wanted to stick it out but to be honest it was a bad mistake. Once we got off there was just nowhere for us to watch the electrical parade we got pushed on to main street in front of the castle by CM’s and eventually managed to find a spot to watch standing on the front porch of the liberty so we could see over the top of people, so as soon as the parade was over we headed to main street to secure a fireworks spot. which even when we did the kids that were put on their parents shoulders obscured everything anyway…but we were there!!
On Tuesday the 20th it was actually my 40th Birthday an important part of this was spending time with Mickey. Id nabbed a 9.50 Ohana breakfast so we slept in and only caught the 8.30 bus to the TTC and monorail to the poly taking everyones advice to leave at least an hour. Well we ended up there by 8.50 and got to hang around the resort for an hour.
We enjoyed our breakfast, our server kept us topped up with juice but again you could see the interactions weren’t so spontaneous and joyful, the table next to us was also older and were the same as us but the other side there was much more spontaneity. However Ethan loves certain breakfast foods so we just told her what he would eat and that’s exactly what she brought back
The characters came around Pluto had great interactions but mickey and Stitch were very quick with us, stitch was the only one with photopass photographers.
After breakfast we took the monorail to MK to get in a few extra rides and watch the FoF parade we had missed Monday. this was a great relaxing afternoon because we hadn’t actually planned too much but managed bonus rides on the things ethan wanted to revisit as well as getting pan done that we’d missed the day before
After the Parade I had a fast pass with Mickey in town hall. Ethan did not understand my excitement and said talking mickey was creepy he actually apologised after as Mickey had a great interaction and even sang happy birthday to me making everyone else in the room sing tooi got a bit teary but oh well we wont get to see him again for a long time after the trip and hes the only one that talks to me. We then grabbed our Halloween braclets and spent some time up the back doing some more character meets.
I just have to say goofy is amazing wherever you meet him. he interacts wholeheartedly everytime.
We took it a bit easy during the party trick or treating and trying to find much more decent spots for the parade and fireworks. We had thought we could watch hocus pocus but found that unless we stayed for the midnight show or were willing to push in we just couldn’t see much.
As we’d been touring pretty long days we just couldn’t do a late show but enjoyed everything we could see. I have to say the Halloween party was great we enjoyed our first ever real opportunity to trick or treat and loved the parade and fireworks.
The next 2 days we actually spent at universal, Again using tp’s.
We continued to stay at Holiday Inn DTD but used Uber as our transportation this worked fantastically.
Other than HP areas universal was quietish we got a lot done. we did not purchase their front of line card but never spent too long waiting really and if we did we didn’t mind too much as we needed some rest.
I really loved the theming in the HP areas but struggled with the squash and people sitting everywhere. Theres a whole staircase that looks to be like its decorative next to gringotts and there were stacks of people just sitting right up it
I also struggled a little with the age of children that are obsessed with HP which may offend some but some children were very young and as someone that works with children I often find children become attached to things their parents like due to it being the best possible way to get attention from their parents but anyway it was interesting ( I admit ethans like of mickey mouse is based on mine and his early exposure when his friends weren’t exposed)
We actually had 3 day universal passes but spent 2 days there and then used our third day to swim and hang at the hotel with a walk to Disney springs for lunch
We already had a chef Mickey reservation for dinner so headed out to that on the Friday night also
On Saturday the 24th we had another grayline trip booked. this time we headed to wild florida checked out the wildlife and went on an airboat tour. I had a lovely chat with an Emu. im sure he recognised my accent ( we actually have Emu’s locally when we go for country drives we actually don’t go near as they can be quite vicious)
Im sure much like us your local animals don’t excite but there was a lot of gators a couple of bobcats, an opossum and various other animals from around the world.
We got our driver to drop us at the premium outlet after as we had booked the shopping tour as well. It was packed. Saturday probably isn’t the best day to go. Ethan picked up a pair of Mickey vans from Journeys which we cant get here and are about $50 cheaper than the ones we can get they aren’t ones you can see on the vans site as they are journeys exclusives
We were supposed to be dropped back to crossroads again but the driver took pity and dropped us at our hotel.
This gave us a little free time before we headed to rainforest café for dinner.
Again we loved the theming of this its not really something we get here as im sure many places around here are more focussed on being boutique and sophisticated or they very much made for relaxed casual dining which is great during summer when you walk off the beach. rainforest café was great but not as great as trex had been for us
Sunday the 25th, time to go home
As our flights weren’t until 6 we had a 9.30 breakfast at 1900 which again we used the resort bus to TTC and monorail to Grand Floridian again we were super early having allowed plenty of time. We had checked out of our hotel before this and they were storing our bags until bus pick up at 3
Breakfast was great Mary was so quick though im sure we said 5 words between 3 of us and she was gone. Alice was a little more interactive giving ethan a hard time about the door mouse and watching out for it as it would eat his jam. Mad hatter was on the same theme although he was a little taken aback when I wishe him a very happy unbirthday
Pooh is not someone we specifically try to see but since we were there I encouraged the interactions by suggesting I hide my maple syrup before he got too close. the little girl beside us was in fits of giggles over this.
After breakfast we caught a bust to Disney springs bought a few last minute things enjoyed a lunch at wolfgang pucks in the marketplace which was lovely and walked back to the hotel to enjoy the long trip home. 4,5 hours to LA 13.5 to Brisbane 2.5 to Adelaide with various stop overs and time difference we made it home 3.30 Tuesday!!
a few tips
Don’t be afraid to use Uber
If you have a voucher book make sure you keep it with you so you can use it as you move around there are great vouchers for rainforest café and trex and various other restaurant and purchases including arribas
Clarify what people mean we got so confused with words that mean different things appetisers for us are pre meal stuff and then we have mains so I didn’t think I could use vouchers originally
Please don’t get angry with me I drive and walk on the opposite side of the road at home. Sometimes im enjoying the environment and forget that im going against the crowd. I don’t mean any annoyance by it
Just enjoy drop things to enjoy moments or to have a rest. There are much more important things than missing an attraction
Thanks for the trip report and I love your Star Wars dress!