Tate’s Trip Report
Myself, DH, DD5, and DD7 have recently returned from a week at Walt Disney World and it was fantastic. Thank you liners for helping make it so magical and annoyance free. This holiday was booked 10/11 months in advance so despite being a first timer I had plenty of time to do my research. I loved touring plans and spent way too many hours playing around with my TP’s. To the extent I knew them by heart and never once got them out. However the planning process was priceless as I always knew where to go next and what to skip or add if we were ahead or behind schedule. We came from the UK and this was supposed to be a one off trip, so we splurged on the accommodation and went for a deluxe. I was very taken with the Animal Kingdom Lodge but we decided on the Poly because of the location, theme, and being able to see Wishes from the resort. Initially when I started making daily plans at 10 months out, I had thought we would come back for a rest every afternoon, and visit a different park in the evening. However my final plan had only 1 evening set in stone, and one park hop. Most days I had our FPP around a lunchtime Park ADR as I was trying to build in flexibility. This worked well for us because we bailed early on our first two days and later in the week we added two extra park evenings.
Tuesday 13th Dec Arrival Day
As we were coming from the UK this was a very long day, nearly 17 hours from the time we left home until arriving at the Poly. Everything went smoothly, though it took two hours to pass through all the security checks and collect our bags at the airport. The magical express was painless, no queue at check in, 5 minutes in the indoor queue, 10 mins waiting for the bus to leave, and we were the first stop. By the time we checked in around 7pm we were all knackered. DD5 fell asleep on the bus and never woke up again. I carried her in and put her on the floor in front of check in desk while I went back to help the others with the bags. As we were first timers Check in took about 15 mins. We took half our bags up to the room, and were pleased to see a man with a trolley when we came back to pick up the rest and our Garden Grocer order. I had requested a balcony room overlooking a pool, and we were very impressed with our room 3806 as we could see the high fireworks above the longhouse in front of us. DD7 went straight to bed, and DH was asleep by 9pm. So I headed down to the beach to watch Wishes, which was a lovely way to end the day.
Day 1 - Wednesday 14th December – Hollywood Studios CL6
It’s been a couple of years since we all shared a room, so once the first person used the bathroom we were all awake. Also our body clocks were telling us it was five hours later, so the girls and I were exploring the resort at 5am. We all had breakfast at Capt’n Cooks at 6:30am, delicious but very sweet as everything came with syrup. We called an Uber around 7:20am and seconds later watched a bus for HS turn up. At that hour there was no queue at bag check and we were waiting at the turn styles by 7:45am. The kids settled down to do some coloring and I got out my thermos of tea. I had been worried that I wouldn’t find any boiling water anywhere, but the hot water at Capt’n Cooks was sufficient so I never used my heating element that I’d brought with me. I can’t remember exactly what time they let us in, but we had signed up for Jedi training and ridden TSMM by 9:05am. As we were queuing for Jedi sign up we were called over to have the girls ages checked and I was given an anytime FPP, then when we signed up they gave us another. I didn’t see any need to mention I’d already been given one. This was great as we used one for GMR, and the other we saved for a repeat ride on Star Tours when we came back to see the Star wars fireworks. We saw a lot during the morning, TSMM, wandered Launch bay and traded with Jawas, Mermaid show, TSMM, GMR, BatB, TOT only DH, though we picked up a rider swap, 40 min ice cream break and relax for the girls, DH saw Stunts & Path of the Jedi, while the girls and I did the Frozen sing along. The only thing we missed was Disney Junior and that was the girls choice as they were enjoying sitting in the shade eating their ice cream, that and they’d made a new friend. I was glad we did TSMM twice as it was a family favorite, the Frozen sing along was far more enjoyable than I expected, but the start was delayed so we were 5 mins late for our 1pm H&V reservation. That didn’t seem to be an issue and we were seated within minutes. We all enjoyed our lunch, especially the kids, and I even went up for seconds of the garlic mash and meatballs. Afterwards it was Jedi training at 2:40pm for the 3:10pm show, which was fantastic. The kids loved it, and DH & I got a thrill out of watching them fight Darth Vader. My timing was good as we would have felt rushed to finish by 2:10pm, though we would probably have seen all the characters by then. Next was Star Tours, DD7 & DH enjoyed this but I had my eyes closed nearly the whole time as I thought I was going to throw up. DD5 was fine though she covered her eyes a few times and didn’t want to do it again. We were supposed to do the Muppet Movie next, however no one was keen so we tried to check into our Sci Fi reservation early. They were actually running behind, but they let us cancel with no penalty. The plan had been to stay for Fantasmic but we were all tired and decided to call it a day. I had asked at lunch if we could use our Dining package seats on a different day, and they said that would be fine. We had less than 5 minute wait for a bus back to the Poly, followed by a swim and dinner by the pool. The kids were asleep by 8, and DH & I saw some of the fireworks from our balcony.
Great information shared!
It was great hanging out with you guys! We sure did have a blast