Trip Report...March 7-13, 2020...first time, crazy time, sad time, all at the same time!

Walt Disney World
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Background: Family of 4+…myself, wife, 2 daughters (21, 20) and our foster son J. We are thankful we received approval to take him as he turned 2 just days before our trip. We have been to Disney many times as a family and wanted to see J love it as much as we do. The goal was to allow everyone to have fun, but to focus on J and his experience. We had a pretty good plan in place with fast passes and times for nap breaks.

Resort: Wyndham Bonnet Creek…2 bedroom, ebay and Vacation Strategies
Stroller Rental: Kingdom Strollers
Van rental: Costco Budget car rental

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3-7: Travel day
Wife, Caro and J flew down via Frontier at $42 piece. Sara and I drove and picked them up from the airport. Dropped off bags, went to Panera for dinner. Then back to condo to unpack, etc

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3-8: Chill Day

Slept in, watched church service and spent the rest of the day relaxing by the pools and enjoying the resort. J loved the pools, bounce houses and lazy river.

Ate at TuTuTango which was an old throw back to dating days with my wife 30 years ago. Food was good, too loud for our group, but overall it was a good change before all the Disney kicked in.

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Oh my! That is amazing!

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3-9 Magic Kingdom Day (First ever day for J)
We drove to the Contemporary Resort and did valet parking. We had a dinner reservation at Chef Mickey and just wanted parking to be easy today. $33 plus $5 tip and worth every penny. Parked and then walked to Magic Kingdom, arrived at 8am. Took pictures in front of the castle with cranes (boo) and headed to Tomorrowland for rope drop…my family loves Space Mountain.

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We headed there first and did a quick parent swap as well. Then, we took J to his first ride at Disney…Astro Orbiter! J loved it! Absolutely loved it! We also did Buzz and People mover. We then hit Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and J ended up getting his own Pooh bear! And then Mad Tea Party before lunch at Peco’s Bill which is always our favorite and we did mobile ordering which made it that much better!
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We then left for a break…actually surprised me that even my adult daughters wanted a break as well.
Returned for dinner at Chef Mickey’s…so surprised at how good this was. Even the security officer at the gate made fun of the food. All four adults were very please at the quality, the selection and the cleanliness of everything. The character interaction was great and this was one of our top meals for sure! We would not hesitate to do this again.
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After we back into Magic Kingdom to ride Dumbo, Tomorrowland Speedway (longest wait of the day, no fast pass and 25 mins) and Tea Cups when the fireworks started. We learned quickly that J does not like fireworks at all!
I left with my wife and J and our daughters stayed for the Disney After Hours event…they both loved it and were able to ride everything they wanted several times. Allowed them to have some time and fun together…they got to bed around 2am.
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AO was a brave choice for first ride! Your pics are precious.

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3-10 Hollywood Studios Day (better know as boarding group day)
Sara and I were the only ones that had a desire to ride RotR and the poor girl only got 4 hours of sleep due to her late night. She was a trooper and pushed through and we had a great morning together.
We arrived at 6:30am and there was already a crowd, big crowd.

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At 7am we headed right towards SDD…we figured we could do single rider for MF and we did not care enough about MMRR to try.
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At 8am we were able to secure BG25! Felt bad for those in line around us that did not get one. We were both excited and then promptly walked right on SDD. Even with MMRR open and MF, the line to SDD after we rode was so long, back towards Mermaid and the line for MMRR just looked crazy!
We walked around Galaxy’s Edge, got breakfast at Ronto Roasters, took pictures, rode Star Tours and waited for the single rider line to open up for MF…it finally did around 9:30am…good ride but would not wait over an hour for it. Single rider line was great!
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We then left the park to grab lunch and to take lunch to the rest of the family…BGs were off to a very slow start, but our was called while we were grabbing lunch. Ate a quick lunch and then headed back to ride RotR…my review…YES, AWESOME, WORTH IT, SO GOOD! Sara thought it was awesome as well and she is not into Star Wars at all…so worth the stress of getting a BG.
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After the ride we left the park AGAIN to pick up the rest of the family. That afternoon/evening turned into a character meet and greet for J, we were able to see Pluto, Chewbacca (J loved him) and Darth Vader (a big NO for J), plus we were able to do Alien Saucer Spin and Tower of Terror.
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Before dinner we had a reservation at Olgas…we all loved it, but the place was a little much for J. Not a place for a toddler. Our dinner that night was at Mama Melrose which we had never been to…we enjoyed it, the food and service were both really good. We all agreed it was good, but not sure we would go back…just felt like another Italian restaurant. Finally, we spent some time as a family walking through Galaxies Edge (stopped for some frozen blue milk) and Toy Story Land to take it all in…so pretty and relaxing.
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If I had to guess, the times between 8-11am were a crowd level 10 and after lunch everything slows down to a 5…very manageable in the evening and chaos in the morning! Just be prepared! Only negative, we did not get ride Rockin Roller Coaster.

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Sounds like another fun day!

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Amazing pics! J looks like he is using the force on Darth Vader!

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We thought the same thing!

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So great to see another trip report, love all the pics

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Great job, great report. Thanks for posting. Put a smile on my face seeing how much fun you had.

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So glad you got to take J on the trip!!! You all look like you are having a great time! Thanks for letting us follow along!

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Thank you…more days to post on Monday!

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3-11 Animal Kingdom Day (better known as can we grab a FOP Fast pass?)
We had a fast pass for Everest, Navi River and Safari…no FOP. We had planned to get to AK at rope drop, but the day before was a long day and it is vacation…arrived at 9:10, so not too bad and went to Everest first and was able to ride it a couple of times.

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We also saw Mickey and Minnie with J and Doug the Dog which J loved! Was headed to Navi, but it went down so we picked up an anytime FP for it which worked out perfectly…
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We also took the train tot he petting zoo which was a nice break for us and J loved the interaction!
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We then walked Gorilla Falls trail which was beautiful and then hit Safari.
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And J fell asleep while we waited in line for Safari…he missed the entire ride.
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As we were standing in line for Safari I remembered the 1:01PM FP drop for AK and what did we find…FOP for 4:20pm!!! We decided to grab lunch at the Harambe market which we all really enjoyed and then left for a little nap time. We were pushing it getting back to the park after a little rest and we were able to ride FOP with parent swap and our girls and J were also able to ride Navi (my wife and I had ridden it before and did not care to ride again). FOP was incredible and I am so thankful we were able to ride it!
Speaking of pushing it…we had a 5:30adr for Boma and we knew we were not even going to be close to making it…showed up at 6pm and we were seated with no issues at all. Boma is a family favorite of ours. We love the food and love the Lodge and the opportunity for J to see more animals as well. Again, our server was incredible…and made J feel special…lots of magic and fun! After dinner we watched some animals and then headed back to the condo for an earlier night.

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Another great day and great pics!

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3-12 Magic Kingdom Day (things are getting crazy!)
Our last day and a relaxed morning…again, you have dreams of hitting every rope drop, but it will be ok if you don’t make it (tell yourself that 10 times and relax).
We finally made it into the MK about 9:30am and headed to Magic Carpets…J loved it and our girls had flash backs to their memories of riding when they were a kid.

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We then hit Jungle Cruise with a FP…no one in my family gets this ride. I love it and laugh the entire time. Everyone else rolls their eyes and makes fun of me…pretty much the story of my life. We then hit TMRR and took turns riding while J played at the playground by Splash mountain. We love this coaster as well. We then had a Dole Whip and some churro bites, yum!
We grabbed another FP for Small World…and this was one of the best times for us…J was amazed! He loves music anyway, but the visual, plus the music made his day for sure.
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When then left for some rest time…returned at 5:30 for the street party (more music fun for J) and then our ADR for Crystal Palace…although the characters are still great this was the biggest disappoint in terms of meal and service. Not sure we will come back until they make some changes…service was rushed, food was not good…this was also the only time during the trip a restaurant felt and looked a little dingy and dirty.
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It was at this point I started to receive some texts from a friend in the news media located in Atlanta…asking about crowds, attitude of people and if anything felt different. It was then that I found out that Disney would be closing in 2 days…I do not think Cast Members knew anything about it before hand at all. In fact most people at the parks that night had no idea.
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After dinner, we hit a few more rides for J, but wanted to finished where we began on Astro Orbiter. It was not a long wait at the end of the night and it was a great way to end our week, even with all the uncertainty to come.
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Thanks for sharing. What a lovely family, and it looked like a lovely time!

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Thank Ryan1 and thanks again for the help with Fastpasses when we were trying to get them…man, that seems like so long ago!

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Small World was my 4yo niece’s favourite on her first trip. Lovely pics!