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[DisneyRon]

Hello everyone, today marks the start of my first visit to Walt Disney World near Orlando Florida.
I'm typing this from a hotel room at the airport.

My flight will be in 2 stages, first with KLM from Schiphol (Amsterdam) in the Netherlands to Manchester in the UK, then transfer to a plane from Virgin Atlantic for the transatlantic flight to Orlando.

Like my DLP Trip Report last year, I'll try and make this a "Live" report, typing up the days as they come, adding in photos either on the spot or afterwards. This format worked rather well for me at DLP, and I hope it'll work out well here.

At Disney World I'll be staying at the Port Orleans French Quarter resort, which is the smallest one on property. It is however rather centrally located and all parks are relatively close using Disney transportation. I'll be making the trip by myself, much like I did to DLP.

I've got a 10-day "magic your way" ticket with park hopper, leaving one day (currently the last one) for rest and shopping, and spending the rest in the parks. As a fan of the Dining plans at DLP, I'll be on the Deluxe Dining Plan at WDW, and have many restaurant reservations made to make the most of it. 

Hopefully you'll enjoy the report as it develops, and do feel free to leave a comment, or ask a question.

Now I'm off to bed, I'll need to be up bright and early to check in on time for my flight.

[lovindisney87]

Yeahhhh so excited to read this trip report, have an amazing time 😁

[daddyof2]

Yeah, hope you have a great time. The few photos I've seen make Port Orleans look really nice

[Rapunzel1]

Have a good flight. I look forward to reading your report.

[ilovemainstxxx]

Have a safe trip DisneyRon
Hope you have a wonderful time , and im looking forward to your trip report and pics

[DisneyRon]

Today started bright and early with my alarm going off at 6 to get out of my hotel bed and down to breakfast, after that checking out and moving the ~500 meters or so to the airport and checking in for my flight to Manchester.

The flight itself was uneventful and quick.

Next up was the transfer to my flight to Orlando. Two bus rides and a pair of security checks later I was in the departures lounge of Manchester airport. At boarding time it turned out that the double boarding pass they printed for me at Schiphol wasn't recognised in Manchester, so I was quickly issued a new one.
Boarding the 747 took a while longer than planned, but we departed more or less on time.
However the 9 hour flight gave me some time to catch up on some movies I've been meaning to watch, and Big Hero 6, Guardians of the Galaxy and Interstellar all  were quite enjoyable. I can recommend Virgin Upper Class to anyone, very roomy and top notch service.
After landing Immigration and customs went surprisingly smooth and I was on my way to the shuttle in around 30 minutes.
After the bus had dropped me off I proceeded to check-in at POFQ, the process here was also quick, and in minutes I had my MagicBand and was on my way to the room.


It was now approximately 19:45, and after dropping off my stuff and resting a few minutes, I made my way to Boatwrights for my first dinner reservation of my stay.

The food here is delicious, but most dishes include fish or shellfish, so if you're not fond of those, you may find more varried choices elsewhere.

Mardi Gras Fritters appetizer, surprisingly tasty with a little bite

After dinner I headed back to my room to get some sleep and type up the day's report.

Tomorrow it's Hollywood Studios time, let's see if I can be awake in time for rope-drop after being awake for nearly 23 hours.

[grovesie]

Glad you liked BoatWright's. We too enjoyed the food. Hope you have a great time

[DisneyRon]

My apologies for the interuption here, as the forums decided not to work for a few days, so I have some catching up to do.

My biological clock proved that it hadn't reset properly after the flight by waking me up at 3 in the morning, after dozing for a few more hours I got out of bed at around 6 got dressed and decided to check out the Sassagoula Floatworks food court for some breakfast. I got myself a few beignets (which taste nice, but could use some filling) and a nice big bagel with cream cheese. After breakfast I went back to my room for a little while, packing my backpack for the Studios.

At around 7:30 I walked over to the bus stop to wait for a Hollywood Studios bus and headed out to the park.
I arrived at the park around 8, and found a nice spot close to one of the entrance scanners and waited for Rope-drop.

This is looking back from where I was standing towards the busses, and this was the quiet park for the day

The park opened to guests around 8:45 and I quickly headed to the back of the park to go on "Toystory Midway Mania"
This is an extremely popular attraction, and by chance I managed to arrive well ahead of the first larger groups of people and there was basically no wait at all. The ride was indeed a lot of fun, and after it finished I quickly went to see if I could sneak in another round before the crowds hit... Well, that didn't work out as I'd hoped, by the time I got back to the queue it had already filled up the ride and was standing outside the attraction, and showing a wait time of 35 minutes.

So I decided to head off and look for something else. I didn't have a touring plan as such, I didn't want to plan things out that far, so I walked towards the "Streets of America" which were more or less entirely devoid of people. This isn't an attraction as such, just some streets from various American cities I believe, but it's a pretty nice backdrop for photos.

At the cinema here they have a replica of the coach used in the movie Cinderella, and since there was nobody waiting in line to have their picture taken with it, I decided to go for that myself.


Next I arrived at Muppets Vision 3D, there were almost no people here yet, and the pre-show had only just started. Perfect timing. The attraction itself is a combination of live-action, muppets and computer animation, and while quite short, an enjoyable experience.


By now it was time for my first Fast Pass, "The Great Movie Ride." There were quite a few people waiting inside so I feel  the FP was well spent, and it reduced the wait to only a few minutes. The ride itself is interesting, with your CM "Guide" being swapped out for "actors" at various points in the ride. Though the movies featured in the ride are all quite old now, so maybe it's time to update a few of the scenes?

At this point I wandered around a little, and decided to pick up a Cinnamon Churro Milkshake I had read about on the Disney Food Blog, it's quite the thing I must say. Very filling, and rather tasty too, and it was 1 snack credit anyway, I still had plenty of those.

Next FastPass on the list was the Indiana Jones stunt show, and it turns out, a Full House, combined with some technical difficulties make waiting times quite long... I spent about half an hour in the FastPass queue to get in here, the standby waiting time was even worse. To make up for the long wait we were issued an extra Fastpass to use at any point in the day (it's not valid for all rides, but a good selection of them).
The show itself is quite good, similar to Moteurs Action at DLP in terms of setup, but with Indiana Jones, rather than cars. well worth seeing.

By now it was lunch time, and I headed to ABC Commisary for some food.

My next Fastpass wasn't until 3 PM, so I had some time to kill, I used my extra FP to do Star Tours, and I have to say, in terms of Story I like the original at DLP better, but this version is certainly more action packed and a more intense ride. This particular showing featured Hoth.
I then went and saw the Voyage of the Little Mermaid, a combined Live Action, Animation and Animatronics show that gives you a 10 minute run of the Little Mermaid movie, including most of the songs. It had been quite a while since I last saw it, so it was fun to do.
By now it was almost time for my 3PM Fastpass, and I headed over to Star Tours to do just that. This time the destination was Kashykk (or however that is spelled, the wookie homeworld).

The sun beating down on me quite a bit, so I decided to get away from it a little while by heading back to the resort to rest a little bit as I was starting to feel a little faint. I returned to the Studios around 7 for my dinner reservation at the Sci-fi Dine-In. The waiting time was unfortunately rather long (well over 20 minutes to be seated with a reservation), however that didn't really matter much to me.  This is an indoor drive-in theatre themed restaurant, with cars serving as your tables and a big movie screen playing clips from 50s sci-fi movies. Very enjoyable indeed, and some pretty tasty food to boot. Do bring a small flashlight or something, as the menu isn't always easy to read in the fairly low light conditions inside the restaurant.

After finishing dinner I headed back home to catch some sleep, tomorrow was Animal Kingdom time.

[DisneyRon]

Continueing with the catch-up, although I am noticing that you tend to spend a lot more time in the parks, meaning there's not as much downtime in the hotel room to type up reports.

The day started off well, a light breakfast and an early bus to the Animal Kingdom, I arrived well before rope-drop and met a nice lady here, whom I chatted with and did some rides with, she was travelling with a couple, and the boyfriend had just asked his girl to marry him, so they "overslept" somewhat.
Immediately after rope-drop we headed for the Safaris, as the animals are quite active in early in the day, so there would be more to see than usual. The wait was maybe 5 minutes, probably less. By the time we finished the safari (it's a little over 20 minutes, depending on the route and how many stops your guide makes), Leonore's friends had let her know that they had arrived after oversleeping, and she headed off with them, though we did exchange telephone numbers with the intention of linking up later.


I headed off to DINOSAUR (yes, it's spelled in all caps in the park too), this is a ride with vehicles similar to the rats in Ratatouille, though not nearly as advanced. It's a relatively mild thrill ride to the time of the dinosaurs, featuring lots of huge animatronic dinos and a crazy time-travel story.


After exiting DINOSAUR I noticed that the faintness I had felt yesterday had returned, and a little stronger this time. Just to be on the safe side I headed off to the First Aid station to have it checked out, I felt that I may have been running a fever or something. As it turned out, I wasn't running a fever, but my blood pressure was abnormally high.

A few days before leaving to WDW I had developed a nasty pain in my ankle. My doctor, suspecting it was gout again, had prescribed me diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug. The downside to these NSAIDs is that they interfere with blood pressure medication, though I've never really had any unpleasant effects from this interference, apart from an elevated blood pressure compared to the levels they're normally at with my medication.
Apparently the climate in Florida made all the difference here, and my now sky-high blood pressure was wreaking havoc with just about everything. I made the decision to stop using the diclofenac to see if that would help.


By now it was around noon, I had cancelled my Kali River Rapids FP, as that wasn't going to do me any good.
Heading towards Yak & Yeti I considered spending some time in the cool bar area there while waiting for my 1PM lunch reservation. When I arrived at the restaurant they apparently weren't too busy and could seat me right away for lunch, rather than having me wait around for about an hour. Lunch here is rather nice, the portions are enormous though, so either share Entrees or bring some serious appetite. I had fish taco appetizers and crispy grilled duck as my entree. The crispy duck was lovely, but basically most of an actual duck, so I ended up sending almost half of it back, as I was simply full. By the time lunch was over I felt decidedly terrible, and cancelled all my afternoon fastpasses and headed back to Port Orleans French Quarter to rest.

Hopefully I would feel a little better after a few hours of not doing much, and could make it to my 8PM reservation at Jiko in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.


Thankfully this was the case, and I headed out looking forward to a nice meal.

This turned out to be a bit of an understatement. The food at Jiko is, in a word, magnificent. As is the atmosphere of the location. There is a giant wall towards the back of the restaurant that slowly changes colour over the course of the evening, recreating the colours of the African sunset, this really sets the mood.

For an appetizer I had "a Taste of Africa", basically a bread-service style dish, with 3 different types of African flat-bread accompanied by 4 different "sauces." This was heavenly, each bread combining differently with the sauces, and each having a different stand-out combination.


For the entree I had "Harissa Chicken", which American style, is most of a chicken, accompanied with cinnamon cous-cous (an interesting combo of flavours with the spicy chicken), all covered in a lovely rich Saffron broth. I felt like a complete monster for sending almost half the chicken back, as it deserved to be eaten in full, but I just couldn't...

For dessert I chose the "Valrhona Chocolate Mousse and Hazelnut Daquoise Cake", which is a very airy chocolate mousse cake like thing, which tasted amazing, accompanied with fresh strawberries.

During the day I had texted back and forth with Leonore a little bit, and we had decided that we'd have dinner together on Wednesday. I already had a reservation for "Be Our Guest" that evening that I'd try and get a larger party size set for.

[DisneyRon]

And we're basically caught up again.
This morning I decided against getting out of bed bright and early for rope-drop at the Magic Kingdom, and wanted to take it a little more easy. I was still feeling a little weak, so let's not rush too much. Thankfully, I started to feel much better as the day progressed.

Breakfast was a slightly heavier afair this morning, as I decided to try the "build your own oatmeal" item on the menu. This turned out rather filling, but quite tasty, combined with half a bagle with jam.

I headed off to the Magic Kingdom a little before 9 AM, and arrived at around 9:10. The lines were crazy to put it mildly, I guess there's a reason you want to be bright and early at these parks. It took a good 20 minutes to get into the park from the bus stop... Any way, I did a little walking around to get my bearings as my first FP wasn't until 10:40, I had a ride with Stitch in "Stitch's Great Escape" a mild thrill ride centering around the space prison from the first Lilo and Stitch film.


I wandered from Tomorrow land to Fantasyland to Frontierland and noticed that the Haunted Mansion only had a 10 minute wait, so I decided to go for that. It's certainly a different experience than Phantom Manor, much less coherent in terms of story,  which in my opinion is a missed opportunity. The Paris attraction easily comes out on top as a result.

Next up I wandered into the Hall of Presidents, just as a show was about to start. An interesting experience I have to say, basically a 10-15 minute propaganda presentation I suppose. Interesting for it's historical context perhaps, but not too much beyond that. I did have to laugh at the line of people trying to take pictures with the portrait of Ronald Reagan... No other portrait (and they're all there) got this kind of attention. He's a bit of a hero to many republicans from what I understand.

After the Hall of Presidents it was time to wander over to Fantasyland to ride the Adventures of Pooh with my FP. It's a nice dark ride in the same style as Peter Pan or Snow White at DLP.

Wandering back into Liberty Street (yep, that's what the area's called... really), I noticed that the Liberty Belle steamer had just docked so I headed to it for a trip. It's a similar boat-ride to the DLP steamers, but it has a seperate circle to go around, rather than sailing around Big Thunder Mountain.

Next up was another ride on Haunted Mansion, this time with a Fastpass, and a good thing too, as the Standby Wait had increased to 40 minutes by now.

After the Mansion it was lunch time, I had a reservation at the Crystal Palace, a character buffet location with Tigger, Pooh, Eore and Piglet. They come by your table, just like they do in the character restaurants in DLP, I got a couple of nice photos from that (I'll make a big photo update round after I get home, there's not really time for that at present).


next on my Fastpass list was Pirates of the Caribbean, the final one of my initial 3.
The ride is OK I suppose, again my preference goes to the DLP version, which I think is considerably longer, and a more interesting ride to boot. Having Captain Sparrow wandering around the scenes is fun, but he really doesn't add too much, other than a familiar face.

On the way to a Fastpass Kiosk I ran right into the "Festival of Fantasy"  parade which is rather beautiful, the floats are all works of art. Though in my opinion the mechanical dragon representing Malificent needs some more green glow.

After this ride my schedule was basically empty until 18:45, when i had a reservation at Cinderella's Royal Table.
Heading to various FP kiosks after each ride I managed to string quite a few together, ending my final FP tally for the day at 7. I rode "Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin" (identical to the DLP one), saw Mickey's PhilharMagic, a fun musical meddley show with 3D animations. Did another round of Pirates (still disappointing), and finished off with "it's a small world", which unlike it's DLP counter part has far fewer spoken sections in various languages, mainly English and Spanish that I noticed, the rest was primarily orchestral.

Next up was dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table, which I have to say, is quite the thing.
First you get your photo taken with Cinderella, then you get called up one by one for seating.

In my opinion I had the best seats in the house, a small table for 2 right in the middle of the window looking out over the Fantasyland square.

Once seated you choose your dishes and as you eat the princesses make their rounds around the tables.

The food was great. For my appetizer I had the "Royal Tasting of Cheese" which was a simple but delicious cheese platter, and for the main course I chose the Chefs fish of the day, which happened to be salmon. 
For dessert, "The Clock Strikes Twelve" was my pick (I'm dining at  Cinderella's Castle after all) and it had both astounding presentation and tasted heavenly as well.
Doesn't compare to "The Temptation of Snow White" at the DLP California Grill though.

The experience is much like L' Auberge de Cendrillon really, but  still rather special to see so many face-characters at once, and the attention to detail is great here.
As I was by myself the staff assigned me a Page to help take photos with the princesses, which I found absolutely fantastic.
Saves me quite a headache, and gets me good photos to boot.
The princesses tonight were Snow White, Aurora, Ariel and Jasmin.

As you can tell from the far more active schedule, I was starting to feel a lot better over the course of the day, and although some pain from my ankle was occasionally jabbing through now, I hadn't felt this good in a few days. Though standing up too quickly was a really bad idea, as my blood pressure was apparently dropping quite steadily, leaving me quite light-headed if I did. This should pass as the pressure stabilizes though.

After dinner I headed back to POFQ. Took a shower and typed up my reports.
I'm now off to bed, as I need to be at Magic Kingdom again tomorrow, this time for Breakfast at " Be Our Guest."

[Rapunzel1]

Souns so nice. Wish we could go again. I am glad you are feeling better.

When you go to Epcot (my favourite parc at WDW)do not forget that both Test Track and Soarin are ver popular. I would grab a fastpass for Soaring and wait in line for Test Track. soarin sells out quicker than Test Track. The other attractions at Epcot are fun too. It is more peaceful than all the other parcs and if you like princesses we never saw so many of them than at Epcot. And never with a long line. mulan waits near China. And Belle (and the monster) near France. Or the cat Marie. jasmin and the prince can be found near the Morrocan pavillion.

[DisneyRon]

It was a relatively early day today, as I needed to get to a breakfast Reservation at " Be Our Guest"  in New Fantasyland, I entered the park around 8:20 or so I think, my reservation was at 8:45, and I had pre-ordered my meal selection. Walking through the empty roads of the park was quite a nice change of pace. Arriving at "Be Our Guest"  I could proceed directly to the main hall after verifying I had indeed a reservation, and if my pre-ordered food was correct.

As I had a few minutes before my food would be trying to find me, I decided to walk around the 3 large dining areas in the restaurant taking pictures as I went of the lovely scenery.


Finally picked a table in the "Rose Gallery" section, which hold a massive music box that a statue of Belle and Beast dance on.

After sitting down my food found me fairly quickly and I enjoyed what is probably the closest thing to a true continental breakfast in quite some time.


After breakfast it was time to head into the park, and thanks to short waits I did Pirates and the Haunted Mansion in quick succession. I then walked around a little exploring in the area around splash mountain, as I hadn't walked that way yesterday. While there I decided to ride the Disney Railroad to Mainstreet. Unlike DLP the magic kingdom only has 3 railroad stations, Main Street, Frontierland and Fantasyland. The CM in attendance at the Frontierland Station remarked that it was abnormally quiet today, as it was past 10 in the morning and both Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain were still well under 30 minutes for their Stand By lines. Not sure what was going on, but it was a nice change of pace from the madness of yesterday.


Arriving at Main Street I made my way to Adventureland and picked up a Dolewhip Float at Aloha Refreshments... It's quite the tasty treat, pineapple icecream, served floating on top of pineapple juice, ice cold and very nice.
After finishing that I went to the Enchanted Tiki-room, which is a short animatronic show with singing birds. After that the Country Bear Jamboree, very corny, but a fun animatronic music show.

Given that the crowds were still feeling quite low, I made my way to Discoveryland to see if the wait at Buzz was manageable. Arriving there I concluded that the missing crowds in Frontierland and Adventureland had all gathered in Discoveryland, as this section of the park was almost overflowing with people. After a quick ride on the peoplemover (not the most exciting thing in the world, but useful for orientation) I headed towards Liberty Square as I had a lunch appointment at the Liberty Tree Tavern. The food here feels a bit out of place, as it's basically blistering with heat outside, but in here they serve Thanksgiving food all year round. It was tasty though, no doubt about that.

Yup, that's me eating a potroast while it's above 30 degrees C outside



While at Liberty Tree Tavern I realised that I had forgotten to pack my medication for dinner, so after lunch I headed back to the hotel for a little while (where's I'm now typing up my report). I decided to skip my FastPass for Philharmagic, as I had seen it yesterday, I changed it to Buzz Lightyear's Ranger Spin at 7:50 instead.
This means that I'll need to be back at the park between 5 and 6 for my The Little Mermaid fastpass, and then at 6:45 I have a reservation at "Be Our Guest" for dinner. My last Fastpass of the day will be at 9:40, for the Wishes viewing area just outside the Castle. I hope to catch the Electrical Parade before that though.

I'll update this post later with the results from Dinner and Wishes.

EDIT: added the last parts of the day to the report

I took the bus back to the Magic Kingdom at around 4:50 PM, and on arrival headed to new Fantasyland for the Little Mermaid ride, a fun ride, visually similar to the dark rides at DLP, but with more elaborate set pieces and more animatronics.

After walking around for a little while and grabbing a few photos for my Memorymaker from the local photographer population, I headed to "Be Our Guest" at around 6:30 to check in for my reservation.
The wait was relatively short, and I was escorted into the castle and seated in the West Wing, the room where the Enchanted Rose is kept.

For the Appetizer I chose a dish similar to what I'd had for Breakfast, a selection of cured meats, sausages and cheeses with bread. The Entree was a herb encrusted rack of lamb, very tasty indeed. For the dessert I made the only valid choice on the menu. Sure they have a fair number of undoubtedly wonderful desserts on offer, but "The Grey Stuff" is a must try, that song exists for a reason. It was indeed delicious.

Actual "Grey Stuff," and delicious too

After paying for dinner, guests were allowed to visit Beast in the Study for photos and autographs (This is the order area during quick service operations at "Be Our Guest"). This was a nice surprise, I knew Beast was occasionally present at the restaurant, but I did not know he does regular meet and greets during Dinner time.


By now it was around 8, and I headed over to Tomorrowland for a spin on Buzz.

After that I wanted to go and find a spot for the Electrical Parade, but heard that the Wishes Fastpass Area opened around 8 for owners of a FP for wishes, and that it also offered excellent viewing of the parade. So I headed over to Mainstreet to see if this was correct. And indeed, this info was correct, very useful indeed. It makes those Fastpasses even more valuable.

Cinderella's Castle, just after sunset, before the start of the parade

The Parade itself was wonderful, though I felt that the final float, a giant American Flag was a bit pointless (even if it was 3 times bigger than the largest normal float), given that every other vehicle in the parade was from a Disney film.

Celebrate the Magic and Wishes were however spectacular shows and I enjoyed them immensely. Especially the huge fireworks display for Wishes. Though the visual effect of the combined fireworks and projection for Dreams at DLP is more impactful in my opinion. It doesn't make this any less amazing to watch though.

After wishes I made a quick round through a few attractions, and visited Tinkerbell, who only had a 5 minute wait just before Park Closure.


After that I headed back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is the 1st day of Epcot, and I'm very curious to see how that park looks.

[Lavi]

Thank you so much for writing this trip report. It's a treat for me!

[DisneyRon]

Had a lovely day at Epcot today.


Made it to the park in time for rope-drop and actually managed to do Test-track without a Fastpass. It's quite an amazing ride, I can certainly see now why it's as popular as it is.
I then had breakfast at Sunshine Seasons in the "Land" pavillion. Along the way taking many pictures of the gardens and various topiaries.

Next up was Mission: SPACE, I did the green side, not wanting to risk feeling unwell the rest of the day. A fun little adventure, and given it's relatively low waits during the day, well worth it.

Up next was my first FastPass of the day, Journey Into Imagination with Figment. This really wasn't needed as it turns out, the wait was absolutely minimal. I then went for my FP for Spaceship Earth, before heading off to the World Showcase to give that a good look.


Starting on the Canada side I made my way around, taking pictures and have a good look at each pavilion. Plenty of characters around, though many with either substantial queues (though not too crazy), or just heading off to take a break. I also had a look around a fair number of the Flower and Garden festival stands dotted around the walkways.

Canada, very recognisable if you've ever been to Quebec

Hook, located in England

Cinderella, France, check out the clock.


Beauty and the Beast topiaries, also in France


Around noon I arrived at Marocco, where I decided to make a small gamble, and check if there was space at "Spice Road Table" for lunch at 12:30. This is in the opinion of several Disney food bloggers a very underrated restaurant, and as such always quite a good chance for a walk-up meal.
I continued walking, as I now had a little time to kill before lunch, and managed to complete a tour of Japan before heading back to have lunch.

The food at Spice Road Table was delicious, the mint ice tea providing a very refreshing addition to the spicier food.

You won't find too many conventional things on the menu here, the default Disney Salad is present, as is a variety of steak, but rest of the menu is either Maroccan or northern African. Very nice indeed.

After this lovely meal I took the boat from Marocco back to Canada, as I had a Fastpass coming up for Living with the Land.

Spice Road Table, as seen from the boat dock heading for Canada
At the land pavilion though I noticed that the "Behind the Seeds" tour was also about to set off, so I signed up for that instead, and moved the FP back a few hours to make room. These tours aren't free, but for the $20 that this one costs you do get a lot of tour. About 75-90 minutes of guided viewing in the green houses at the Land pavilion, where Disney grows a lot of their own food. Our guide was wonderful and enthusiastic to show what she did here (as an intern she runs one entire greenhouse), and it felt good to stretch my own knowledge of Botany a little, as I deal mostly in Molecular Biology at work, and don't get to use it much anymore.

After concluding the tour I went to visit "Ellen's Energy Adventure" before coming back to the Land for my FP at "Living with the Land."

After that I took the boat from Canada back to Marocco and continued with my circuit of the World Showcase.


Lion King themed topiaries at the Outpost, an African themed section of the World Showcase

Trying to time my arrival at China with my Dinner reservation at the Nine Dragons restaurant.

Dinner here was quite loud, but the food was tasty (very sweet chinese food, not that spicy at all), and I enjoyed myself.

After dinner it was time to find a spot somewhere around the lagoon for IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth, and in retrospect, I should have settled in at the waterside in China, but I didn't realise that until quite a bit later. My final viewing spot wasn't bad, but I'd have done a lot better by staying in China. The show itself is quite the performance, and certainly a must watch if you're there.

The park closes after this, so I headed back to the busses to go home, and taking a shower and typing up the days' report.

Tomorrow is my 3rd day at the Magic Kingdom, with a little luck I can catch the soft-opening of the Junglecruise, after its 5 week hiatus.

[DisneyRon]

The day didn't start off great as my left ankle had finally decided to give me a chunk of the pain I had felt there before leaving back. So walking was going to be considerably slower, as well as painful. Once in motion though it wasn't too bad, but standing for an extended period of time was followed by a few minutes of sharp pain as I got going again.

Made it to the Magic Kingdom bright and early by bus though, and then spent nearly an hour standing around waiting for rope-drop (not a brilliant decision on my part). After the opening and the march up to the hub I went off to Adventureland to see about the Junglecruise. The construction walls were down, but they weren't accepting riders yet.
So that means I'll probably go back tomorrow morning for that, and then head off to epcot.

Next up was a quick ride on Pirates and Haunted Mansion. As well as pictures with "The Great Goofini" and "The Astounding Donaldo" at the storybook circus.




On a recommendation from the Disneyfood blog I also grabbed a cake-cup from the Chessyre Cafe, which was probably the densest cupcake sized thing I've ever eaten, incredible. Not even that tasty, but such a heavy little treat.

I had a fastpass coming up for Buzz, but didn't feel like that too much, so I decided to change it, and I managed to get one for Peter Pan instead, very short notice too.
This ride is almost identical to the Paris one, but there are some minor changes in some scenes, just as absurdly popular too.

After Peter I decided to just take a nice walk around the park for a while, as I waited for lunch time. Tomorrowland Terrace was open for business (a rarity) and I used it's extensive seating area to cool off a little with some water, while watching one of the shows at the Castle.


Just past noon I slowly made my way to "Be Our Guest" for my lunch reservation. I found a table in the main ballroom, and completed a minor achievement in doing so, Eating at Be Our Guest at 3 different times of day, in 3 different dining halls. Lunch consisted of their French Onion Soup, a Croque Monsieur and a lovely Orange Eclaire.

After lunch I decided to head back to the hotel to give my feet a little rest, as my ankle was bothering me.
Moving my afternoon fastpasses to not waste them became my next point of business. I changed one FP to Buzz for 5:50-6:50 (dinner at the Contemporary at 7:30) and ended up with a minor miracle, as I grabbed a FastPass for Anna and Elsa at 8:50-9:50. These FPs are very hard to come by, and the waits for these 2 ladies is astounding during the entire day.

I'll add my experiences from the evening to my report later, now it's time to rest a little.

EDIT:

Buzz was fun as always, though my score wasn't exactly stellar.
I exited the park and took the monorail over to the Contemporary Resort.
I arrived quite early for my dinner reservation, but after being dropped off by a CM at the 15th floor (which is the restaurant, there's nothing else up there, other than 2 observation decks for guests) I was seated relatively quickly. The menus here aren't as fancy as the DLP California Grill iPads, but the food is certainly on par. Very nice indeed.

Yuzu-marinated Sashimi for the appetizer

Chocolate Pudding Cake as the dessert


The view from the California Grill Viewing deck towards the Magic Kingdom

Everything was fun until it was time to get up after paying, as my ankle basically gave out on me (probably held my foot wrong without noticing), and I literally limped out the door wincing in pain. I headed down to the 4th floor to take a monorail back to Magic Kingdom for my Anna and Elsa fastpass, but our train was delayed due to another breaking down further down the line. This meant that to make that Fastpass I was going to have to walk there.

I managed to make it back to the Kingdom just as the Electric parade was starting, which was an issue as I needed to get through most of their route to reach Fantasyland plaza voor Anna and Elsa. Luckily Disney had already opened the back passages running behind mainstreet, so I could use those to cut around the worst crowds, maybe Disney could add something like the DLP Discovery Arcades to make these permanent passageways.
Then quickly through Tomorrowland and along the concourse to Fantasyland. I made my fastpass, grimacing in pain now, with 10 minutes to spare. Anna and Else themselves were lovely face-characters and I had fun bantering with them a little bit, though I imagine I won't look great in those pictures.


Limping out of the meet and greet I slowly made my way back through the park, determined to get home and in bed. Taking a painkiller as I got home, hoping it would help for tomorrow, which would be day 2 of Epcot.