This is my first trip report and my first trip as a “liner”. I thoroughly enjoy reading trip reports of others so I thought I would try one.
This was a 9 night trip. It was me (DW35), DH37, DS3 and DD1. I have been to Disney multiple times growing up. DH and I have gone once together before kids and once with them. This trip we really focused on things the kids would enjoy. DS is NOT a thrill seeker and DD is too short for everything. Also we had free dining. We had the QS but we paid to upgrade to the DP (since we knew we wanted to do a lot of character dining).
7/23 Arrival Day
We flew out of Bradley airport (Hartford ct) and arrived at MCO around 8am. We hopped on DME and were at Pop Century a little after 9am. We had 11:30 reservation at chef Mickey. I was able to modify it to 11. So we checked in at the hotel (even though we did online check in I wanted to verify where our room was and make sure we would be able to get a pack n play for DD. Once we were all set with the front desk we hopped on a bus for MK and we walked to the contemporary.
Chef Mickey. We love it here. The food is standard. But it’s such a fun way to start the vacation. My Kids adore any character interaction. There were lots of hugs, high fives and Mickey waffles. The kids did pretty good for being up since 2:30am and only cat napping on the plane. During brunch we got our room ready text! Yes!
Back at the hotel we decided to keep the kids up and head to bed early. Our luggage had arrived by the time we got to the hotel so we did some unpacking and headed down to the pool. We swam for a while. Then we took the kids to the food court for them to eat dinner (DH and I were still full from brunch. And tired!). Then we all went to bed around 6pm to get ready for our first park day! MK. My favorite of all the parks!
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Awesome first day! I have Chef Mickey for our first meal too… not sure it will stay in that slot but it is a must do for us regardless. Keep the updates coming!
Sounds like you had a great start!
Yes!! I’m starting my next trip at Chef Mickeys! Such a fun start!
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7/24 Magic Kingdom
Everyone was up early since we went to bed so early. I like the idea of rope drop, but I also know we aren’t doing the “big rides”. (So the goal each day was to arrive a little before park opening)
We got to MK at 8am! I was so excited. When we got into the park we went straight to the Main Street Vehicles. We have never done this. We had to leave the stroller for a one-way ride down to the castle. It’s was fun. DS thought he was in a parade! Once at the castle DH and DS walked back to park entrance to get the stroller, while DD and I walked to the Starbucks on main st. When I got there, nobody was in line! I ordered and got it before DH got back! We walked down to Casey’s corner to eat the Mickey cinnamon roll outside. We ended up watching a little of the opening show from back there. Not the best view, but we were happy.
When the lands opened we walked with purpose to the magic carpets! (I know…I know!) We rode that once, then DH and DS climbed the treehouse, while DD and I rode the magic carpets again! Then we all walked over to fantasyland and rode It’s a Small World twice (walk on as you can imagine). This was my kids favorite ride the whole vacation! Then we headed to Peter Pans flight with our first fast pass. DS did not like this (I also realized he may never have seen Peter Pan from start to finish, hmm). Then we did Winnie the Pooh ride with our second fast pass. Headed towards Dumbo but we all needed a little snack and break. So we got the popcorn bucket and some Mickey pretzels with cheese (I love these! I know they aren’t all that special, but easily one of my favorite snacks. Probably because of the cheese!) After our little break we went and rode Dumbo with our 3rd FastPass. It was 11:45. It was hot. So we decided to leave and get lunch/nap/swim back at our hotel. We were the only ones on the bus back to Pop and DS ended up leaving the popcorn bucket and his fan in the bus. Hopefully some nice family found it and enjoyed it!
He was so upset when he remembered. We assured him it was an accident and he would get more popcorn!
After naps and swimming we made our way to Epcot. It was raining. But we grabbed our ponchos and got going! I had grabbed a 4th FastPass for the character spot. So we headed there first. Character meets are my kids jam. If that’s all we did all vacation they would be happy. Then we did the nemo ride, cute. We stopped and got the kids some chicken nuggets at the Electric Umbrella before we headed around the world showcase. Got to the world showcase and it poured. I mean poured. We got out the rain for a bit and it lightened up and we continued our way around. We stopped for nachos in Mexico and caramel apples in Germany. We met Anna and Elsa. We actually headed out before illuminations because we had to get up early for our 8am breakfast at Tusker House!
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7/25 Anima Kingdom
We had an 8am breakfast reservation at Tusker House. I got everyone up and out the door by 6:45. We got to the busses and one was there for AK. Made it to the park and past security and we were the first ones at the taps for breakfast reservations. I was surprised that there actually weren’t many people there. I was surprised considering how popular FOP is. Anyways, when they opened the park they let us breakfast people in first and my family was greeted as the first family of the day at AK! Just a greeting but it kinda made my day! We got back to Tusker House and we were the first family in the restaurant. Pretty cool. And Oh My Gosh! We loved the breakfast there! DH and I loved all the options. I really liked the banana bread pudding! DS loved the fruit loops lol and DD just watched the characters and I don’t think actually ate! Oh well.
After breakfast (a little before 9) we headed to The Safari. We walked on. This is DH and DS favorite thing to do at animal kingdom. We saw lots of animals and even heard the lion roar! After this we used a FastPass for the Lion King show (fast pass defiantly not needed but…) This is my favorite show in all of Disney! We all enjoyed the show. DD was grumpy and it was pouring rain, so we jumped in the wildlife train and actually just rode that back and forth twice while DD took a little nap. DS loves trains so it all worked out! After this we used our second FastPass for another Safari ride! Then we were all a little hungry so we mobile ordered the kids chicken nuggets at restaurantasaurus and pulled pork and cheese over fried from Flametree BBQ. Then we went to use our 3rd FastPass of the day to meet Mickey and Minnie! We left the park around 2! Went back for naps.
The kids were tired! They ended up sleeping from about 3:30 to about 6pm! We ended up eating at the food court for dinner and then headed back to Animal Kingdom for Rivers if Light. It was pouring again. We got to the show for about 8:15 and it rained all while we were sitting there waiting for it to start. It actually stopped raining when the show started. We all enjoyed the show. DS liked it because it wasn’t loud or scary. He’s a little timid chicken! We left AK after that, but stopped to see the tree of life. DS was pretty impressed! Then we headed back to the hotel!
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i remember when mine were little and we did this! thanks for the reminder that Disney is great at every age!
What room did you have at pop and did you like it? I have trouble imagining where to put a pack n play in those rooms!
I also really liked the tree of life! I hadn’t heard about how cool it was before I went, so it wasn’t in my plans, but we happened to walk by and it was REALLY cool!
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Ahh I so wanted to do a trip report, mainly so I could go back and read it and re-read it! But life!
We had a preferred room at Pop and boy was it tight with a pack n play. But we dealt with it because better sleep for all. We put it in front of the connecting door. Not ideal, but we managed.
This is mainly why I do them.
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