I’ve been to Disney World 3 times in the past 10 years and really enjoyed my trip every time. One thing I have noticed about each trip is that, in the moment, I am frustrated, tired, and generally stressed out every day. Every day pretty much presents you with stress to get on the bus, stress to get on a ride and stress to not lose any kids you may bring along. Yes I know, most of theses stress’s can be alleviated by planning ahead and deciding months and months ahead of time, where you are eating which rides you want to ride and to top it off the days and times you want to do all of this. To me this is not less stress, just a different flavor. Despite all of this, I keep going back and we absolutely love it.
Disney World to me reminds me of that aftertaste you get when sipping a fine wine. The hints of flavors are what keeps you coming back for more, maybe a little oak or some fruit, you’re not sure at the time when you drink it but the aftertaste is what stays with you. Sure Disney World is super stressful for most people but the memories you build are definitely worth at least another sip if not the whole bottle.
I’ve stayed off resort twice and on once and I would recommend staying on if you can afford it; unfortunately for us that has not always been the case. Our most recent trip had us staying at the Wyndham Lake Buena Vista Disney Springs Resort Area, which in all honesty was beautiful. The rooms where clean and the swimming pool was huge. I’ve always been a fan of pools that have the necessities; food and alcohol. While the food was decent it seemed to get better the longer we stayed, maybe the alcohol and hot tub had something to do with that but I’m not sure. There was also a really neat water slide for the kids, and yes adults too who really enjoyed the food.
The resort offered pretty much everything you would need from a Pizza Hut to a convenience store located right on the property. The one complaint I had was that the Disney buses did not have a scheduled stop here which in part was our fault but if you’ve read any of these other posts you would know that planning is not my strong suit. A car rental and Lift solved our problem but I will admit the buses are so much more convenient.
I would 100% recommend planning your trip during the winter months if at all possible. We usually try to go in February or early March which probably is not a great time if you are a water park person, but if you prefer not melting it is ideal.
We splurged and got the Hopper pass this time around. I would certainly recommend this too, it’s a little more money but it does alleviate some stress as it allows you to basically hop from park to park . The alternative is being stuck at a park you may not like for a whole day, we won’t mention any parks, Epcot.
We ‘planned’ our first day at Hollywood Studios. I love this park and if it weren’t for Animal Kingdom it would top my list of favorite parks. We are huge Star Wars fans so the fact that they had just built a whole new section devoted to Star Wars called Galaxy’s Edge certainly helps. So the big fancy new ride, Rise of the Resistance, was what everyone was talking about. It seems that Disney was sitting around the boardroom one day asking themselves how they could add more stress to their park experience, the answer they came up with was Rise of the Resistance.
I will admit the ride is pretty cool and visually stunning another admission would be that the process to get on this ride is nothing short of crazy. It is recommended that you arrive before the park opens. The Disney app is your only means of booking a ride on this voyage so you wait with that app open, and you wait, and then you wait a little longer until finally 7:00 hits. From there you are in a race with the 100’s if not 1000’s of other guest to get one of the limited spots or boarding passes to the ride that day, and just like that less than 30 seconds later its over. Try again tomorrow.
I enjoyed Rise of the Resistance but I probably won’t go through that ordeal again, I’ll stick with the classics like The Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster and The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Galaxy’s Edge is a must see though even if you are not a fan.
On to Animal Kingdom. This park has a little bit of everything, it’s like a zoo and an amusement park all rolled into one. We always enjoy checking out the animals and doing the safari but the real reasons I come to Animal Kingdom is Pandora and Expedition Everest. Pandora is a section devoted to the movie Avatar complete with floating rocks and glowing plants. When entering this part of the park you can feel the temperature actually drop a little as your eyes widen to take in the majestic sites. Two rides are featured in Pandora, one great, one not so great.
Let’s start with the great: Flight of Passage, a masterpiece of a ride. Basically a 3D joy ride through Pandora sitting atop a dragon looking creature that is so real that my son almost threw up upon completion of the ride. As I ran after him down through the exit tunnel hoping he would not paint the hallway with his own glowing colors, I could not get the imagery of the ride out of my head. Flight of Passage has mastered the art of the 3D ride and dabbles with the 4th dimension also while water and wind can be felt as you are soaring through the skies of Pandora
The not so great; Na’vi River Journey. We waited around two hours for this ride and my impression was, ‘yeah, it’s pretty’. Basically a slow boat ride through a tunnel with glowing plants. So two hours is a little expensive for; eh, it’s pretty. Luckily after grabbing a snack and beverage we still had Everest left to conquer. I absolutely love this roller coaster. One thing I will say about Disney is that they try to make every ride an experience and Everest is an unforgettable one. It has everything you could ask for in a coaster; steep climbs, even steeper drops, a tunnel and the bonus is that the ride actually goes backwards after you encounter the infamous Yetti hiding at the top.
Two down and two to go, don’t worry we’re almost done. What can I say about Magic Kingdom? Well I guess I would say you should go there after all its a classic, but the older your kids get the less interesting the Kingdom becomes. Here you can get everything classic Disney, the characters scattered throughout the park, the rides based on your favorite kids movies and unfortunately the lack of thrilling rides. For someone like me Magic Kingdom is one of those parks that screams ‘Hopper Pass’. I can do a few hours but other than the tired old Space Mountain that feels like it was built in the late 1940’s there isn’t much for the ride enthusiast here. Nevertheless there is quite a bit to see especially if you are a first timer and the fireworks display held every single night is incentive enough to hop back to the park at the end of the day.
We didn’t forget about you Epcot. Typically one of the least interesting parks in Disney World Epcot has really grown on me after this trip. While the park was under major construction during our last visit I actually enjoyed it this time around.
Epcot offers a few rides most of which are not memorable for me to even mention, but it does have a unique little twist that the other parks do not. I’m talking about the countries, and it is pretty cool. Eleven countries you can walk through each complete with authentic food and entertainment. Another fun little twist we discovered was the Around the World drinking challenge, amazingly enough I had never heard of this. So, you pretty much start at one side, I recommend Mexico, and make your way through all the countries drinking a beer in each one. I know the heavy drinkers out there are probably thinking, ‘that’s only eleven beers’, very true but some of these beers have a little more kick than our basic domestic types. Needless to say, all of this had me seeing Epcot in a more favorable way than I had in the past.
Last thing about Epcot I promise, but I have to mention the amazing Italian restaurant we ate at. I may be a little bias because I actually am Italian but you have to try the Tutto Italia Ristorante located in, if you haven’t guessed, Italy.
Well, what’s left? I suppose I should mention Disney Springs since we did pop in and out of there a few times, and no hopper needed. It’s basically a really nice outlet mall with tons of shops and tons of pretty good restaurants. It’s the perfect place to start your week especially if you arrive a little later and don’t quite feel like tackling the parks yet.
Disney World is one of my favorite places to go but I certainly would recommend taking a few years in between visits. You really need to give your memories a chance to filter out and discard all the stressful moments, three years usually does it.