Walt Disney World – Part 2

…. continued from Disney World Part 1:

Wednesday, October 6

In-park day 3 of our trip was for Epcot and I chose a dress and sandals. I had done Disneyland twice in a dress and sandals, though I don’t believe either of those times were as walking intensive as our Epcot day was.

I got this dress for $10 at the Dillard’s Clearance Center earlier this year and not only does it have pockets, it also makes me feel like I should be sitting on a beach singing “By the Sea” to whoever is begrudgingly with me.

Around 7 that morning I got on the app and got mom & I a boarding group for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure with an ETA on return time working out to about 2p. Since the park opened at 9, we were slow getting to breakfast and then getting on the Skyliner to make our connection out to Epcot.

We arrived at the Skyliner Station on the west side of the World Showcase near France. Our first order of business in the park was coffee. From there, we continued working our way clockwise around the World Showcase towards the Norway Pavilion.

We got in line for the Frozen ride and clearly did not do our research or read the ride notes because we were confused about why there was a warning about drops and getting wet. That did not stop us, though.

After Frozen we made our way towards the Epcot ball and went on Spaceship Earth. Since I was a kid and had the Walt Disney World Explorer on CD, I wanted to go inside the Epcot ball, and I got to mark that off my list.

After we got pictures in front of the Epcot ball, we made our way around the path and went to Living with the Land.

After our boat ride we continued down the path back to the World Showcase as it was time for lunch. We stopped in the Mexico Pavilion and got tacos.

After we ate we continued our walk clockwise around the World Showcase looking at the Pavilions. By the time we made it all the way around the lake it was our turn to go to the queue for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. We ended up waiting a little over an hour before we loaded into a car, and it was well worth the wait!

After Remy’s we decided we wanted to go on the boat ride through the Mexico Pavilion so we made our way back over.

Once we completed that ride (which has one of the most spatially tight queues I have ever experienced), we knew it was time to figure out dinner. As weird as it sounds, we ended up opting for a sit-down dinner at Le Cellier in Canada. 

Following dinner we took one more round trip of the pavilions making sure to go into each one that we hadn’t gotten to yet.  

After our last lap around the World Showcase, we headed back to the Skyliner station and went back to the hotel for the night.

Thursday, October 7

Thursday morning we got up, got breakfast, and made our way to the Skyliner. Once boarded, we made our connection, and found ourselves at park entrance for Hollywood Studios.

First order of business once inside was making a beeline for the line for Rise. We made it through the line and to interrogation when the ride shut down, which was unfortunate because we had waited a couple of hours, but we did get the equivalent of a FastPass to return later.

Once we got our passes set up, we made our way back to the park entrance for coffee. With our coffee, I also grabbed a carrot cake. As we wrapped up coffee and what we wanted of the carrot cake, my mom decided to take it to the trash and on her way fell off the curb and I barely caught what happened as it happened.

As soon as she was down, 4 moms from other groups swooped on her. One grabbed a cast member, one pulled ice out of her stroller, one pulled bandaids, and one was doing a preliminary check on her. Mom was adamant she didn’t want to go to first aid when the cast member arrived, and I helped her set the bandages we did get from all of the wonderful people who stopped. She then sat for a little bit with the ice on her knee (which was the biggest casualty).

Once she stood up again, I immediately recognized that the bandage job would not hold and told her that we were going to first aid. She tried to protest saying it was too far away and I did not allow that for a moment – for context, we were sitting in front of the Pandora store and first aid is at the front of the park. The stars on the below picture show how far we were (Galaxy’s Edge got cut off on my screenshot).

First aid was just as much of a hands off adventure as it was the few days prior. Mom signed in, they asked us what we wanted for her injury, and the passed the supplies to us through the gap in the divider. We moved over to the little bench in the lobby and I got to work cleaning and replacing the bandage on her knee.

We joked about all the practice we have with odd bandaging because of dad and the nurses asked a few questions that led to us giving them a brief history of his injuries over the last 35 years. Once mom’s knee was situated, we made our way out of first aid and started walking the shops on Hollywood Boulevard before moving towards Tower of Terror.

After losing The Tower in DCA, this was probably my most highly anticipated ride of the whole trip. Though it was a little different from what we had in California, I was very, very happy with the differences (and honestly a little shocked to find I still remembered most of the video scripting).

Once we finished our stay, we made our way through the park to Toy Story Land as we knew we wanted to have lunch and go on rides out there.

We decided to get in line for Slinky Dog Dash – which was by far the hottest queue we waited in – and while we waited we put in a mobile order for a BBQ Brisket Melt at Woody’s Lunch Box.

After the ride we made our way over to the Alien Saucers since we still had some time before our mobile order return.

Following our ride on the saucers we crossed the pathway to collect our mobile ordered food. The day was another warm one and we were lucky to find a table in the shade. We split the BBQ Brisket Melt and were very happy that we did. It was so good, but with it being a hot sandwich and a hot day we could only really consume half each before we were full.  

We walked around Toy Story Land a little more once we wrapped with lunch, and then followed the path on the far side of the land around to Galaxy’s Edge.

We did stop for a few photo spots, and made our way over to Rise. With our return pass we basically walked on the ride, which was great, and we are very happy we got to go back and experience it. Following the ride we spent a little more time walking through that section of the park before heading back towards the center.

We are both fans of the museum/history type things at the parks, and next on our list of things to do was walk through the exhibit and watch the short film at Walt Disney Presents.

After the show, we exited the theater and made our way back down Sunset Boulevard to get in line for a second round at Tower.

Around that time we were able to check in for our dinner reservation for the Hollywood Brown Derby. The food was exactly as I was expecting, and I was surprised by how loud it was in there (especially after how quiet Le Cellier was the day before). We did get a booth on the edge of the main dining room, and overall had a great experience!

Once we left the restaurant we wandered the shops on Hollywood Boulevard and I snagged the last of the souvenirs I wanted from this park.

As far as attractions, we decided to end our night with one more round on Rise of Resistance. Since it was so late in the night, we stopped in the Storm Trooper room and took a picture.

While we were in line for Rise, mom discussed wanting ice cream, so we decided to go to the stand just outside of Tower.

After our ice cream, we wandered back down Sunset Boulevard and then up Hollywood Boulevard to the park exit. We boarded the Skyliner and made our return trip back to our hotel for the night, and along the way got to see the Epcot ball lit up.

Friday, October 8

Friday we had planned to be a slow day of packing and going out to Disney Springs to get final souvenirs. We got up as we woke up (which if you know my mom and I, you know that means we still woke up at the crack of dawn).

After getting ready we made our way over to get breakfast and then got on a bus to be at Disney Springs as early as we could. We started our morning by going to the Lego Store since the mini castles had been released the day before. We managed to get one for each of us and then made our way to Starbucks, the Disney Store, and wandered over to check out Uniqlo (which I got a bunch of new clothes at).

We finished up our shopping for the day and went back to Polite Pig for lunch – again opting for a collection of sides to make up a meal. After lunch we took the bus back to the hotel and started packing for the travel day that was to follow.

Saturday, October 9th

With our flight time being a little later in the morning and a confirmed Magical Express Shuttle time of 8:00a, we got up, finished packing, and got breakfast before making our way to the front of the hotel where the shuttle pickup was.

You may find yourself wondering why our return trip get it’s own day marker at this point in the storytelling and you’re about to find out why.

We arrived at airport around 8:30, gathered our luggage, and made our way to the ticket counter to check our bags. When we got to the counters, it was immediately apparent that the mass flight cancellations of the day before had not been handled by any of the carriers. It was to the fault of exactly 0 of the humans we saw or interacted with, and that also does not make it any less stressful. I am thankful that everyone involved in the ticketing area seemed to uniformly understand that the situation was not in anyone standing in that room’s control and treated people as such, which was nice.

We had opted for first class and the Sky Priority line was essentially just as long as the standard queue. The line we were in did not move for nearly 45 minutes and it took us an hour and a half to get our bags just dropped off. I had not had a true anxiety attack in a public place in nearly a decade and that situation was enough to do it.

Once we got through that line we made it to TSA and thankfully made it through in less than 10 minutes. We got to the gate around the same time they started boarding, so it all worked out (it would have either way), and that was appreciated. However, we did sit on the plane door closed for 40 min and that made our connection that was originally had an hour and a half window have a boarding time window.

We did end up making our next flight, as did our luggage, and made it home safely that afternoon.

to be continued with misc. information & thoughts….