Started this in a doc and figured if I started posting, I’d be inspired to finish.
Enjoy if you like reading poorly written lengthy novels.
Day 1
Well I’m back again to write our annual trip report. And every year I hope I’ll be back sooner (because that would mean we go more frequently). As always, thanks for letting me relive our trip in this cool space. This year we took two big trips—we went to Portugal in April to visit family and discovered the girls were ready for international travel and we had our August Disney trip. I wondered how this trip would go—knowing we had a really great international trip and how I would feel about Disney still being annual for us. Well.. we still love the pixie dust. Which makes our planning for next year.. complicated. We’ll see. This trip it was just 4 of us—first trip without my stepdaughter as she just graduated and needs to acclimate a bit to adult life. We hope she’ll be back to joining soon, but not sure how soon that will be. So it was my husband Josias, myself (Kayla), Katie age 8, and Emma age 5. Both girls were extremely excited this year, wanting to help plan and watching Mr. morrow videos daily. Katie, who has some sensory anxiety needs, did a lot of prepping for this trip. She has a history of saying she wants to do something and then running paranoid out of lines or having extreme fits. This was our biggest struggle in Portugal as she tried to exit the plane before take off when going home. We did a lot of work in therapy and at home to prep her for the trip—deciding strategies for travel, what rides she truly wanted to do, etc to try to avoid the fight or flight takeovers this year, and luckily we’ve really made some progress. We’re still not totally sure what triggers everything and think a lot is connected to the fact that she’s been a daily sleepwalker since she was 2. I share all this with an open heart so it’s kind of clear why we used DAS and why some of our biggest wins—were truly hard won wins.
So anyway we took off from Providence on the 6am flight. We like this early morning one as less likely to have delays, etc. I’m also getting better with flying as it’s very nerve wracking for me. I hate all of the Southwest changes, but they still ended up being the best option for us. I paid for slightly close to the front seats (row 8) and paid to check 2 bags. I miss when their prices were great and didn’t have extra costs.. such a bummer. But the flight was smooth, girls were excited, and luckily Katie was great on the plane (her experience in Portugal was much more closely tied to leaving family). We opted out of Mears/magical express for the first time ever after waiting almost 2 hours our last trip. So we grabbed our bags and ordered an uber. So easy and affordable. It wasn’t magical theme-wise but how quick we got from exiting the plane to the hotel was a tad magical. We touched down at 9:20 and were at Caribbean Beach by 10:15–totally unreal. Our arriving luck stayed with us as our room was ready and in Aruba where we wanted it to be. So we were able to go unpack and be back at Centertown for lunch and a swim in no time. I’m not sure if it was our location but while we love the vibe at Caribbean-the room seemed dusty and old and the ACs leaking water out every door was weird and seemed like an accident waiting to happen. On another note, we felt wildly secluded. We might have seen two other families in our building all week. Overall it did not feel like a busy time at Disney.
So we had some decent quick service and enjoyed the main pool for a bit. It was also not crowded. But we didn’t stay long as we wanted to go to EPCOT. We have never gone straight into a park on arrival day because of cost, but we got the summer promo—get 2 days free on a 4 day ticket plus free kids dining (it was a pretty solid deal). Knowing we still like our break day, we decided to use our bonus days on arrival and extending our Halloween party day by arriving late morning. This ended up being a great way to have more park time without overdoing it. And luckily we were all at least laying down in bed at 8 the night before so the early morning flight wasn’t bad.
EPCOT was a quick Skyliner ride—and security has become so easy without a stroller. It makes such a difference. We strolled to Future World and started with Spaceship Earth. Our next ride was Test Track—this was a big question mark as it’s one where we’ve had a runner before. By some miracle, there wasn’t even hesitation this time and everyone loved it. Such an awesome moment! Then we went to the Seas because Moana was closed,which strangely had a line. After, we headed to the Land to try Soarin Over USA. And maybe because I was just so happy to be there, I didn’t really have any criticisms and liked that they were trying new things. Next, got a ride in on one of my favs—Living with the Land. Got to inhale that bromine smell and float amongst the plants—the things dreams are truly made of. I often find myself wishing I could transport to the rainforest room and just breath in that water scent. Would anyone see me floating around in the back?? Anyways.. then we had dinner at Garden Grill. It’s been awhile but the food is still good. I’m not a meat lover so I loaded up on cornbread and salad. And after the summer of avoiding lettuce in restaurants I really enjoyed letting loose. The server did tell me that there’s no guarantee that the food comes from the ride, but I just imagined it did. We didn’t take too long and I really made it a point to just eat what I needed/wanted and not to force myself just because we have the dining plan—it really made for a much more enjoyable trip. I’m not much of a drinker, with the exception of a light beer on occasion so not forcing myself to order one just because I could was great. It felt good to potentially let Disney win (and maybe they didn’t as we loaded up on character meals). So leaving not fully stuffed was excellent and we headed to 3 cabs and Frozen. In hindsight I’m glad we did 3 cabs as we did not get to our full EPCOT day (see day 5 for future rant). The girls were excited to finish the frozen ride, as we were evacuated our last trip. And right before we scooted out of the park we rode Remy. 5 stars for no 3d glasses—much more enjoyable as I seem to get more motion sick as I get older, We even got to grab a German grapefruit beer to share (the reason I could never be a total non drinker). 25k steps later it was time to crash. Big wins=smooth transportation, test track as a family, kids who kept up without strollers!!
Too many other character meals I haven’t tried yet!
