Looking forward to following along!
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Good lord you aren’t wrong there. We never check bags so it’s always a complete shock again when I have to check something!
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Travel Day!
Coming from Seattle our options for a direct flight to MCO (which is always my goal because travel these days is terrible and if I can avoid a stop with kids I’m going to!) are either leave early in the morning or take a redeye. We did a redeye once and DH has vetoed those ever since so early morning flight it was! We actually live on an island near Seattle, so in order to get to the airport in time we would have had to get up at like 2am, so instead we stayed at a nearby airport hotel and got up at 5am. Well - the rest of the family did. I got up at 4am because my gambling nature (and the APs burning a hole in my pocket) had me booking Tron ILLs for that night!
Luckily no issues with the flight and we landed on time around 4:30 at MCO!
We got our car (sidenote - I swear every time I rent a car at MCO something new and different goes wrong. This time we were renting through Avis and the status that I had meant that we had a car assigned to us, it told us which spot to pick it up in and all I had to do was generate a QR code in order to leave the garage. Fantastic! Except that when I got to the garage for some reason I had no signal! So had to try to tether my phone to DH’s in order to generate the code to get out of the dumb garage! Luckily that worked…)
But then! We arrived at Wilderness Lodge! I love this place so much. We stayed here in 2018 and 2019 at Christmas time and it’s my absolute favorite at that time of year, but it’s really pretty great any time of year. When we bought DVC we went with Copper Creek as our home resort, and it was our first time actually staying at Copper Creek! Our room was ready by the time we got there - we were staying in a 1 bedroom and we were up on the 7th floor (sadly no access to club level, we all tried tapping our bands just to make sure we hadn’t secretly been upgraded!).
First things first - it was so hot so that meant pool time! Also we were starving so the kids jumped in the pool and I got us all dinner from Roaring Fork. The pool was actually hot enough that it wasn’t even really all that refreshing, but the kids still loved it. I finally dragged them out though by telling them that we were going to go get to ride Tron! One of the other things my family loves about Wilderness Lodge is the boat to the Magic Kingdom so as soon as we were fed and dressed - off to the boat!
And then Magic Kingdom! We couldn’t just tap in with the APs, we had to go activate them at Guest Services which took a few extra minutes but we had plenty of time so it was ok. Our only plans were Tron - but we got there and had a little time ahead of our LL so we decided to go ride Space which said it was a 20 minute standby line. Which clearly had an issue because as soon as we got in line the standby wait time jumped to 50 minutes and we ended up waiting around 40. Oops. And then I looked and realized that Tron was down and our LL was now an anytime… assuming that it came back up before park close…
So, time for a pivot! And tonight’s pivot meant ice cream and watching the fireworks over the PeopleMover and then watching them on the PeopleMover!
And Tink flew! I love Happily Ever After so much (though I have to say that Wonderous Journeys absolutely gives it a run for its money)
After that it was around 9:30 with a park close of 10pm and the lightcycles still weren’t even running. They had all the canopy lights glowing and I could see that they were at least letting people up the ramp area so we decided to go over and look at the lights and figure out if we thought it would come back up or not. Every cast member we talked to said that they were working on it but no guarantees of course. Given that we were all still on pacific time we were ok with waiting it out because we were all so excited to ride. And at about 9:45 they started sending lightcycles through and they let us line up and sent us into the queue! There was absolutely no wait until we got to the lockers and then it was just a few minutes after that until we were on! DD10 was nervous about the ride vehicle and whether or not she would like it - luckily she was willing to at least try it once with whole family to see how it was. That is SUCH A FUN RIDE! We all wished it was a bit longer but we loved it!!
The park was closed when we finished but we were so happy we had a chance to ride it (with bonus Space Mountain and PeopleMover rides!). Back to the boat we went and to bed! And then began many days of me waking up before 7am to book things and then waiting for the family to wake up and get ready (spoiler - for this week we didn’t make it to early entry or even park opening once! The heat absolutely got to us and we ended up having more late nights than intended so even with breaks in the middle of the day there was no way we were going to be able to wake up and get going early enough. As I kept reminding myself though - a slower trip with everyone happy about what we were doing was the most important goal!)
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IT HAS BAYMAX!!! (My family might be getting a tad tired of me bringing up how cool he is)
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They’re just jealous. Baymax is the coolest!
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They were with me 
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We thought the same on the one night we were there before SC #1. It was my first time staying at WL too. I loved it!!
This was a hesitation of mine when considering staying with the whole family. Does it work okay for RD?
Definitely!
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Do you usually fly Alaska or another airline to MCO? I do tend to like the red-eye, but it can be brutal!
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We never made it for rope drop this trip, but if I recall from past years yes they’re pretty good about the boats running in time to get you there. And you go through your own security line getting off the boat, so you aren’t having to deal with people coming the other ways either.
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We’ve been alternating Alaska and Delta recently depending on prices and timing. We did Delta this trip as the flight times got us into MCO at 4:30 that first day and we landed back in SEA at 8:30 at the end of the trip.
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It does! We have always arrived from FW or WL in plenty of time to rope drop by boat.
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Day 1
Our first full day we started at Magic Kingdom (since I wasn’t positive we were going to be able to make Tron work on our first day I wanted to ensure we had a chance for an early BG Monday morning). It worked perfectly - I think it was BG8 (I blame my fingers being slow, not Joel’s work!), but it was called before we even got there. I was up early (as I will be this whole trip - it’s hard for me to go back to sleep once I got our BG and LLs figured out). We got Genie+ this day and I got a Pirates LL for the first hour since the kids were excited about riding that and I figured if it went down it might be a good option for a Golden Ticket to get rides in before it started raining. As it turned out, that’s exactly what happened! But since I was up I wandered a bit around the resort with my coffee and DD8 (who was also awake) while we let DD10 and DH sleep a bit more. Finally ready to head to the boat around 8:45 and into the park a little after 9!
Love seeing all the views around the water but omg the new Poly DVC building is so gigantic! It was our first time really seeing the construction and wow… how are they going to make that concrete behemoth look anything like it belongs at the Poly??
I love this entrance medallion and it doesn’t feel like our trip has really started until I get that photo of it
Made my family take some castle pics with a photographer who had no line! She was off to the side of the hub but it worked out great for some fun pics without a ton of people around.
And then more Tron!! I really do love this ride - Guardians and Flight of Passage still beat it out in terms of overall favorites, but I think this is a really great addition to the park. Of course I wish it was a bit longer, but I really did love it and glad we got so many rides on it over this trip.
After Tron we went over to the Laugh Floor because it was so so hot and we were already ready for more air conditioning. And then it was time for Crystal Palace breakfast! I had two goals - churro waffles and Tigger! Tigger is my absolute favorite and for a variety of reasons I hadn’t had a chance to hug him since 2019 I think (when we did breakfast at 1900 Park Fare I think). The waffles were delicious and the hugs were so great!
After breakfast Pirates was back up and I had snagged another LL for that, so we went over there and then did Big Thunder Mountain. And then after heading back toward Adventureland to get on Magic Carpets with a LL (because we had the MEP I was just getting LLs for whatever the kids wanted to do) we realized that DH had lost his Magic Band somewhere between this picture on BTMRR and when we got to the carpets.
He retraced his steps and tried to find it and the kids and I rode the Magic Carpets and got spit on by the camels. And then we all realized just how dark the clouds were getting and decided it was time for a break (after submitting a lost and found claim for his Remy band that sadly never got found).
We discovered that we could see the geyser from our room! (we were in a 1br in Copper Creek that was was on the 7th floor and tucked up in the corner - but we could see the tops of the higher fireworks from MK and the electrical water pageant when it came by!).
All my DDs wanted at that point was to swim but lightning kept the pool closed for longer than they wanted. So we went and played at the arcade for the first time ever on a Disney trip! The kids loved that place.
Finally the rain stopped and we had a decision to make - swimming or Epcot with stacked LLs (plus the deluxe evening hours!). We were all hungry and DD10 was ready for her first funnel cake of the trip so off to Epcot it was!
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You all have great ears!
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Day 1 (continued)
So off to Epcot we went! Sidenote - We definitely needed the midday breaks every day this trip, it was the only way that we could make it in this heat. Several hours of downtime in the AC, plus changing clothes and shoes made it all bearable. Thank goodness for washing machines (though, as it turned out we ended up having an issue with the dryer…)
We were all hungry so we headed to Mexico to grab some food (my kids routinely eat three things for lunch and dinner at Disney - chicken tenders, pizza and black beans and tortilla chips at the Mexico pavilion. So when in Epcot we usually have at least one of our meals there). Then off to Remy for the LL that I grabbed at the 3:47 drop!
(The kids were excited to learn that they could sit by each other on rides now when they wanted to!)
And then back to the America pavilion for funnel cake!
We explored more of the pavilions, including Remy spotting for the scavenger hunt and shopping at Mitsokoshi which is our favorite store in Epcot. It’s also where DD10 decided she was going to use her shopping money this trip to finally get the Totoro nesting doll set that she’s wanted for years. The way we now do souvenir money for the kids is to give them a set amount on a gift card each day so she was going to have to save until the end of the week to get it which was a good lesson in deciding what she really wanted and not just get a bunch of little things.
Then it was time for Soarin’ and Living with the Land and more food that my kids would eat at the food booths (plain dumplings from China for them and the Dan Dan noodles and samosas from India for us!). Then we had a FEA LL I had pulled earlier in the day, rode Guardians from a BG I snagged at 6pm for the extra hours queue and walked on to Spaceship Earth to finish out the day!
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Thanks! I think this was the only day that we all ended up wearing them… ah well!
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Oh and I forgot to mention the song! We got One Way or Another on this ride which was one of the two songs we hadn’t gotten yet! So now the only song we were missing was EWTRTW which is the one that I’d been wanting to hear ever since the first time we got to ride. My kids call this the Hocus Pocus song so it was fun to finally get to hear it on the ride!
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I really love Tron, too! I’m glad you had a few chances to ride! We made a special stop at MK to ride the day before we boarded the Halcyon for our first cruise!
Love, love, love the pics with Tigger and Pooh! The whole family with Pooh is my favorite. 
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Lovely looking trip so far!
Your post made me (once again) think about considering WL for our next trip. I currently have BC booked but I’m still considering other options
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DH never cares about photos with characters but I’m so glad DD8 got him to join for that one! We hadn’t yet met Pooh and we were ready to go so luckily he came out just in time!
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We really really love that place! But we’ve stayed at BC a couple of times too and it’s great but feels much more spread out (at least for us since we’re back in the dvc wing). But being on the boardwalk is pretty awesome location wise!
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