Shout out to all of your liner wisdom - my years of stalking your well laid plans paid off! The husband had been to WDW as a kid and Euro as a teen, but this was the first trip for myself, DD7, and DS2. I had planned a trip for DD’s 4th birthday in 2016, but it was during that Zika scare and we cancelled because I was pregnant - a hurricane ended up hitting that week and Disney was mayhem, so it turned out to be a good thing in the long run. We told our daughter about our trip on her birthday this year and left 4 days later.
10/22 - Landed at MCO right on time, even though I had been nervous about flying Frontier (the kids fly free deal was too good to pass up). Rode the Magical Express over to ASM, found our room (a floor up and several doors down from my TP room request), got a mediocre pizza at the food court (but 2 QS credits fed our family of 4), let the kids marvel at the giant Toy Story statues outside of our room, got our Prime Now delivery, and wondered how on earth we’d be up early enough to rope drop AK.
10/23 - We were up and in line for the bus in the dark and got to AK right at 7am. We had to activate our (military salute) tickets and buy our Memory Maker at Guest Services, but our TP wasn’t set to start until 7:30, so we were still ahead of the game. Rode Navi River, Triceratops Spin, attempted It’s Tough to be a Bug, but the 2yo noped out of that before it even started, so we took a few Tree of Life MM shots and rolled over to our 8:25 Kilimanjaro FP. That line was crazy long and had several other riders going full “I want to speak to your manager” because the line was longer than they expected with a FP and some special group was going through a separate entrance ahead of us. It was a lot like the safari ride at our local Six Flags, but there was so much more animal activity! It was still a bit too cold to potentially get soaked on our KRR FP, so we skipped that. Our brunch reservation at Tusker House wasn’t until 10:45, so we grabbed some Starbucks and went autograph hunting - Pocahontas, Rafiki & Timon, and almost got Scrooge McDuck before he went on break (missing him and Launchpad may be my greatest regret of the trip). Got most of our core autographs at brunch, but also discovered that DS is really not a fan of the non-face characters. As in, there were initial tears/screaming, followed by a constant “Uh uh! Uh uh!” and vigorously shaking his head while leaning away from them. Womp womp. DD was all about those autographs though.
Went straight to the Rafiki train after brunch to boost DS’s spirits, collected some pressed pennies, and I hopped on EE while the husband took the kids to the Boneyard. Met back up with the fam, got Mickey bars, and headed over to FotLK. This ended up being such a highlight of the trip! DD was wearing her birthday badge and sitting on the end of our aisle. Towards the end of the show, a CM came over and casually chatted her up and asked if she wanted to be in the show with them. She is normally pretty shy, but jumped on the opportunity and it was so great - extra special birthday magic! Met Dug, Russell, and Kevin, then it was time for our FoP FP - DD was super tired and tried to not go with DH, but we convinced her to ride at least once and then she could nap if she wanted. FoP blew her mind though and she couldn’t wait to ride again with me. She talked the whole rest of the trip about wanting to ride it again. I was able to snag a KRR FP to replace our earlier burned FP, ran over to meet Mickey and Minnie at Adventurers Outpost, and then we had a nice dinner at Yak & Yeti. Our earlier brunch reservation was a RoL dining package, so we caught the 7:30 show, bolted out afterwards, and made it back to the hotel before 8:30. It was a LONG day, but had an easier Epcot day to follow.
10/24 - This was a much more laid back day. The husband had a 9:30 solo reservation at Savi’s Workshop in HS, while I took the kids to Epcot. Rolled up right at 9, walked around in a circle for more time than I’d like to admit because I apparently can’t read maps, then went to our Turtle Talk FP. I was shocked by how freaking adorable it was. Took the kids to the Seas with Nemo, made another pressed penny stop and let them buy stuff at the gift shop. Husband let us know he was skylining over from HS and we headed over to Norway to meet Anna and Elsa. The line was shorter than I expected and DS was far more into meeting the princesses than Mickey and Co. He didn’t want to hug them, but did show them his belly button. Husband met back up with us and we had time to also meet Mulan before we started our Food and Wine mini-brunch. Had some snacks in the Alps, Africa, and Hops & Barley before we laid off so we’d still have room for lunch at Akershus. Kids got some stuff at the Japan store, because what better place to buy Hello Kitty and Nintendo merch than at Disney? Used our FP for FEA, met Daisy again, and had our Akershus lunch. DD got a birthday card from all of the princesses and a special cupcake and her day was made. Husband was pleasantly surprised by his weird potato dumplings and they gave DS a meal for free (under 3 on the meal plan).
Side note on the meal plan - it ended up being an amazing value for our family - we did a split stay between ASM and Shades of Green, so we got 4 days of meal plan for 3 of us. Since we didn’t have to pay for DS on the meal plan and 3 of our 4 TS were buffets, we paid about $716 and based on receipts we got over $1122 of food and it kept us well fed Tuesday-Saturday. We intended to do some more food and wine hopping and meet a few more characters, but DS was done and it was getting HOT, so we snagged a quick Spaceship Earth FP on the way out and went back to the resort for pool and playground time and just grabbed dinner at the food court. MK is coming up next!
I love toddlers.