Towards the end of February 2019, Cody and I went back to Orlando! I adore Orlando and always have such a great time there. We also had a chance to snag a super nice resort, Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort, through Global Discovery Vacations, so Cody was excited about getting to go to Orlando too. This was a different type of trip for us... we are starting to become pool people. In the past, we've always been more go, go, go... but ever since our Norwegian cruise where we had such a wonderful day on their private island at the pool, we've really started spending a lot more time at the pool on all our vacations. And honestly that is what we mostly did on this trip!
We had a huge, gorgeous resort that we were able to stay at. We were at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek resort. This resort was basically right in the middle of Disney property. It was located off of Lake Buena Vista, and Disney resorts were on the right hand of the street and we were on the left. We were right next to Typhoon Lagoon and Disney Springs. It was a great location for people that are wanting to spend a lot of time at Disney.
It's hard to tell in this picture, but we could actually see Epcot from our balcony.
We could even see the fireworks from the different parks at night from our balcony.
The resort had a huge lake in the middle of it with a boardwalk area to walk on. We enjoyed walking around the resort.
They had these nice shaded swinging chair areas scattered throughout the resort that I loved! I was soooo excited when I saw this!
The resort had 6 towers and one hotel area. We stayed in tower 4, which had recently been renovated. We really liked that location on the resort.
They had 6 different pools with hot tubs at each pool. And they had two lazy river areas as well.
They also had a pirate ship that had a slide on it for kids. They also had a whole separate kids water area with the buckets that tip and the water that squirts. They also had a pretty nice jungle gym and putt putt area. We really liked this resort!!
We had a two bedroom condo with a full kitchen, living room, and balcony. We love having a full kitchen on vacations because it is so convenient to eat breakfast and sometimes lunch at the resort and not have to worry about going out for every meal. We also buy some food and drinks for the week on the first day that we get into town.
We were on the 12th floor in our tower in room 1276 and had a nice view of Disney. I guess we used to have even a better view in the past, but you can see the next resort that Disney is building is kinda of blocking most of Epcot now.
I have to talk about my wonder at how much land is still not developed!!! This picture just doesn't do it justice, but there is an enormous amount of land in between Epcot and Disney Springs that just isn't developed yet. I've always heard that Walt Disney came down to Orlando and bought a ton of land... and that a lot of it is still left to be developed... This must be it! I just can't believe that so much land, in the prime area of Disney World isn't developed yet. Every time we went out on our balcony during our trip (which was every day)... I was just blown away by this!
We got to Orlando early on our first day. We actually ate lunch at Miller's Alehouse and then we were able to check into our room. We then spent most of the day at the pool (you're going to see that this is a theme!).
Cody wanted to go to a place about 40 minutes away called Crabby Bills for dinner. I looked online and I only saw the first half of their menu and I didn't think that it looked all that great... but he was pretty adamant about wanting to go... so I gave in... and OMG it was the BEST meal we had all trip!! We got a huge plate of alligator bites, and a rum runner bucket... but my actual meal was SO good! I got crab legs and two different types of shrimp. Yummm!! This place just made the list! We are definitely going back there in the future.
Day 2 we packed up our cooler full of drinks (love that they let you bring your own drinks to the pool) and we pool hopped for the day. The resort had several different pools and we were bouncing around between them, the lazy river, and the hot tubs.
Around sunset we started walking around and exploring even more of the resort.
We had a fun time taking pictures with each other...
We were walking not too far from a huge lake and every couple feet they had warning signs about the dangers of alligators and snakes on the property. I have to think that since the little boy died from an alligator attack at Disney a few years ago that maybe this is a law in Florida now?
We didn't do very good research beforehand about where we wanted to eat during this trip, so we kind of struggled to decide where to eat every night (NEVER AGAIN!)... which honestly I HATE wasting so much time trying to figure out good places to eat once we get on vacation. Note to self to make sure that we research better in the future... But we decided that since it was early on in the trip we should just get pizza to have, so that we could have it for lunch throughout the week too. But it took us forever trying to decide on where to go... we ended up going to Pizza Hut! We came back to our room and ate pizza on our balcony while watching the Epcot fireworks.
On Day 3, which was Monday... we woke up pretty early and were just piddling around. We were planning on going to Braves spring training game around 11am and then on Tuesday we were planning on going to Universal. However, we were looking at the weather app on our phone and it looked like the next couple of days were definitely going to be raining/stormy. We had already paid for our Universal tickets... so we decided to head out there today instead. We wasted so much time deciding that we didn't get into the actual park until about 11am...
Even with getting there a little bit late, we were still able to do everything in the park. We utilized Unverisal's single rider line a lot for the rides that had big waits. Cody got to go on the Hulk for the first time (it was closed for refurbishment on our last trip), which is always a fun ride. Then we were able to go on the new King Kong ride. Universal built Skull Island which is massive and really neat set up for the ride. You literally drive in a van around Skull Island, and it is done really well. It was the same "show" as what we've seen in Universal Studio's Hollywood's backlot tour, but it was still neat to go on.
Of course we got to spend some time in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and I got my butter beer. And the prices of this butter beer are crazy! For that little glass I paid $7.50! Then latter we got a warm pretzel for $9! Plus our park hopper passes for 1 day for the two of us cost $359! Jeez Universal!
We got to go on all the new attractions that we haven't seen at Universal yet... like the King Kong ride, Jimmy Falon and Fast and Furious rides. The waiting areas for attraction at Universal are all super cool. Like the Jimmy Falon ride had all kinds of memorabilia from all of the Tonight Show Hosts and it was cool to look around. The fast and furious ride had all kinds of tricked out cars (that a lot of guys in line we fawning over), and then the castle Harry Potter ride wait is almost as good as the ride! Props to Universal for really cool waiting areas. But maybe some points lost for the rides kind of being... the same? I would say that about 75% of their rides are motion simulated type of rides... which after a while they all started to feel the same to us. And towards the end of the day they left me feeling a little bit sick.
I was really excited to see the Hogwarts castle get lit up. That is something that I've literally always wanted to see, but for some reason have never been by the castle at night.
Funny enough... the highlight of our trip to Universal wasn't even technically IN Universal. In the City Walk area right next to the Islands of Adventure is the Chocolate Emporium. And OMG!!! It was unbelievable!! They had an awesome bakery section, but they are famous for their milkshakes and sundaes!
Look at these giant sundaes that we got for only $10 a piece! Now mind you... we had just paid $9 at Universal for a pretzel... so this place felt like a steal! And it was suuuuuper yummy too! We almost drove back out to Universal to get another one of these on another night during our trip. But it was a pretty far drive from us, and then it's a pretty far walk from where you park to there... However, I would HIGHLY recommend giving this place a try on your next visit to Orlando. This is a great addition to City Walk, I'm not sure how long this has been there, but this was the first time that I've noticed it. Cody had done some research and knew that we should try this place.
So our impromptu trip to Universal ended up being a good day. Their single rider line was our savior to make sure that we got to do everything in the day. But honestly, I think we only used it for a couple of the bigger rides (Hulk and Kong) and everything else seemed to have a pretty short/walk on line. We had a good time here, but I'm not sure when we'll be coming back to Universal again. The price and then all of the rides feeling pretty similar might end up keeping us away for a while. Not to say that we didn't have a good time there, but it's a "been there, done that" type of situation now. I think next time I'd choose Sea World over Universal.
After we got back from Universal, we decided to hangout in the hot tub outside our resort for an hour or so. Every time we were in the hotel tub talking to people, they kept asking us about Disney and whether or not we were going to Animal Kingdom to ride the new Avatar Flights of Passage ride. The hype was REAL for this ride! Every person we talked to raved about it... and someone even said "You don't deserve to go to Disney if you don't end up riding this ride" WOAH! And the ride is almost always a 3-4 hour wait, and people were like "I think it was even worth that wait" WOAH! I was getting super excited for that ride!
On Day 4, we ended up getting to go to the Braves Spring Training game. That 80% chance of thunderstorms for the day?? Ended up blowing over! It was a beautiful day, but it looked like the rain was going to come at some point that evening. We were able to see some of the Braves starting players play for the first 4 innings of the game. However, we unfortunately didn't get there early enough for Cody to get any autographs, so he was a little bummed out about that. After we got home from the game, and the rain started. So we came home took some naps, I read my book for a while, and then we went to Miller's Alehouse for $5 zinger night. We really thought that based on the weather forecast that this rain was going to continue on throughout the night and the next day of our vacation (90% chance of rain/thunderstorms for the day). So we were thinking about going to the Kennedy Space Center the next day...
However, we woke up the next day and the weather changed to being sunny with a 30% chance of rain after 4pm. So we were like WOW! Lucky us! We were staying so close to Disney Springs, and we literally drove past it anytime we went anywhere on our trip... so we decided that today would be a Disney Springs day.
Here are some of our pictures from Disney Springs...
Outside the rain forest cafe...
I love browsing around in the giant Disney store!
Both of us!
Love this picture of him.
For lunch we ate at the Smokehouse by the House of Blues.
We had noticed these "Minnie" vehicles driving around everywhere. It turns out Disney Springs seems to be where Disney stores their extra cars. These Minnie Vans are similar to Disney's version of Uber. However, it is driven with a Disney vehicle by a Disney cast member. You need to go through the Lyft app to be able to get one, and it costs about 3X's as much as Lyft does! But we saw these little beauties all over the place so people obviously use them.
After Disney Springs, we went back to our resort to go in the lazy river and pools for the rest of the day. While we were at the pool they were playing music bingo... where they'd play a clip of a song and then you'd have to see if you had it on your card. They did two rounds... one was with Disney songs and the second round was with 70's music. I was excited and naming all the Disney songs, and Cody was excited for the 70's round.
For dinner we decided to go to PF Chang's and enjoyed sitting out on the patio. Whenever we could during this trip we stayed outside as much as possible to enjoy the warmth.
That night our resort had a dueling piano activity that was right outside of our tower. So we went down to check it out. At first we were going to hang out in the hot tub and listen, but we quickly realized that it was hard to hear and that we felt cut off from the group... so we sat in a lawn chair and hung out for a few hours. They were promptly done right at 10pm, and Cody and I headed up to our room to get ready for our Disney day!!!
Day 6 was all about Disney Park Hopping! At first we were going to do two days at Disney, one at Hollywood Studios and another at the Animal Kingdom... but then upon researching we realized that Hollywood Studios is under a lot of construction right now and there's not really a whole lot to do there. So we originally decided to park hop between the two parks... but then after talking more... Cody said that he was interested in Epcot too. We've both been to Disneyland and Disney World within the last couple of years, so I was cool with not doing every show and seeing everything. I really just wanted to get to experience all the new stuff that they have added in the last year or two. So I did a ton of research ahead of time to try to make out a good plan of how we should plan our day to make sure that we could do everything that we wanted to... I looked at the Orlando Crowd Planning calendar to see what wait times are like for rides normally by hour, and I was able to put a rough draft of how long everything would take us (I was spot on too by the way as far as how long each park would take us).
The two most popular rides at Disney right now are Slinky Dog Dash which is the new roller coaster at Hollywood Studios and then Avatar Flights of Passage at the Animal Kingdom. I really wanted to see and try all the new things at Disney so those two rides were at the top of my list. I also have never seen the Animal Kingdom at night, so I decided that Slinky Dog Dash would be our first ride of the day. I had read that if you got to Hollywood Studios early that you could get onto SDD relatively quickly, but if you got there right when the park opened, you'd wait 75-90 minutes for the ride. So we got to Hollywood Studios an hour before the park opened, and they had started letting people line up in the park about an hour and half early. So I was worried that we were late/behind the group. They start letting people walk towards the ride at 8:45am about 15 minutes before the park even opened.
It was basically a mad dash to Toy Story Land. It seemed like that was where EVERYONE was headed! So Cody and I were like "Let's GO!" So we were just trying to not fall behind the pack. They led everyone to a line and it was a massive group and people were rude trying to cut up and into the line.
But we were super lucky! We basically walked almost all the way through the que, and we were off of the ride by 9:05am! Which is only 5 minutes after the official park opening. The people that got there a few minutes behind us had a 75 minute wait for that ride! Slinky Dog Dash is a cute roller coaster, but I'm not sure that I'd say it's worth a 90 minute wait. For the amount of time that we waited for it, it was cute.
We were ahead of the game and walked right over to Toy Story Mania. Everyone was still focused on Slinky Dog Dash, so the line wasn't long at Toy Story Mania yet. Toy Story Mania is probably my favorite attraction at Walt Disney World! I love love love this ride!! And Cody was thrilled that he beat me at it...
Here we are in the front of Toy Storyland. Unfortunately, the Tower of Terror was
broke down that morning, so we didn't get to go on it, but we did go on
the rocking roller coaster. Since the park only has 5-6 rides right now
(3 in Toy Story Land, and the rocking roller coaster/Tower of Terror,
and a motion simulated Star Wars ride) the wait times for rides were
really long. But we used the single rider line on the rocking roller
coaster and got on it relatively quickly. We were out of Hollywood
Studios by 10:30am, and on our way to Epcot (which was about a half an hour ahead of schedule).
We had a car so we drove over to Epcot. In our car we had drinks and snacks so it was a nice little break for us. Cody and I had a good trip to Epcot, but we were a little bit rushed there. I would like to spend a whole day at Epcot sometime.
We had a great camera guy that took all kinds of pictures for us when we walked in!
Another good one that he took!
I love Epcot for all of the beautiful photo op spots that it has!
We started off at Soarin' Around the World! This was the first time that I've been on Soarin since they've updated it. And I loooved the new show! I think that looking at major land marks from around the world is amazing. I think that this ride is probably my second favorite ride in Disney vs Toy Story Mania.
I looove the flower plants of different Disney characters throughout Epcot. In France was Belle and the Beast.
Italy was Lady and the Tramp
Africa was the Lion King... and Etc... I loved looking at the different ones at all the world.
We stopped to watch the Japanese drummers perform. And we watched Sergio perform in Italy (who was hilarious).
We made the long loop through all the countries over to Test Track. Cody was really excited about Test Track and so was I. I remember it being really awesome. We went on through the single rider's line, but it wasn't the same as I remember it. Does anyone know... did they re-do it? I remember it a bit differently.
I think that we could have spent a lot more time in Epcot just browsing around the different countries. We didn't really get to go into too many of them and look around a lot. We mostly just had time for various photo ops and watching some of the performers, because we had to leave Epcot around 3pm to get to the Animal Kingdom in time to start using our fastpasses. But that's what happens when you're only trying to do the "highlights" of the parks, and hitting up 3 parks in one day. I think that next time we go to Disney we could spend a whole day at Epcot. And I've always wanted to eat at one of the places in the world showcase.
After Epcot we headed to the Animal Kingdom. We had been going pretty hard all day and really hadn't stopped, except when we were driving in our car to the next park... so we were starting to get a little bit tired. However, luckily I had fastpasses for the Animal Kingdom, so we were able to hop right onto Dinosaur and the Na'vi River Journey.
This was the first time that I've seen Pandora which is the new Animal Kingdom land. I was super excited to get to see it. I watched Avatar the day before we left on our trip so that I remembered the movie and remembered what everything looked like/the plot of the story. It had been about 10 years since I had seen it in theaters, so a refresh was necessary. Again, this was another area that we probably could have spent a lot more time in.
The Na'vi River Journey was a new ride that I had never been on before, and it was very pretty. Then we got to go to the Festival of the Lion which is my favorite live show at Disney! Then we headed to Everest. They have recently re-done the waiting que for Everest and it was amazing!! They had all sorts of Yeti memorabilia and it was really neat! We also had fastpasses for the Kilimanjaro Safari ride and I was really excited to get to go on this at night time. However, I think that we waited a little bit too long to go on it. I wish that we had hit it more at twilight time vs night time because it was hard to spot and see the animals when it was dark. However, we did go by the lion area and they were growling/howling at each other and I've never seen or heard that before so that was pretty neat. The girl driving our bus was pretty amazed by them doing that too, I guess she doesn't hear them doing that all that often. So lucky us!
The only thing that I was really disappointed in during our trip to Disney was the Pandora area at night. I expected it to be lit up and to be really beautiful... just like it was in the Avatar movie... but it really fell short for me. It looked nothing like what they show on their tv commercials.
Before we came, I was also very pumped to see the tree of life lit up. I honestly think that the picture we took makes the colors on the tree pop more than they did in person. I wasn't very impressed with the Animal Kingdoms night time appearance. I really think that Disney could have done a lot more with it.
Our last ride of the day was the big dog... Avatar Flights of Passage. This ride has SO much hype around it. Everyone we met talked to us about it, and told us how cool it was... so I was pretty excited for it. It is the most popular ride at Disney World right now, fastpasses sell out for it almost immediately, and the wait times are usually between 3 and 4 hours during the day. We got some drinks at Pongo Pongo ahead of time, and got in line for the posted 130 minute wait time (which was the lowest we'd seen it all day... at one point it was at 340 minutes that day). I had read that despite what time you get in line for the ride that Disney allows you to ride it... even if that time is past when the park closes, but because of that they almost double the wait time on the sign outside to discourage people from getting in line.
We waited through several different areas while in line. The coolest I thought was towards the end, which was the scientists lab area from the movie.
They also had an avatar that you could view which was huge! It was around this point that I was praying that we were coming up to end of the line soon... We had been going since 8am that day and had walked 14.5 miles! I was dying in line! My feet and legs were SO tired!
After about 50 minutes of waiting, we got to a section where it looked like they were counting people off into numbers. And we were like... OMG! We might be to the end of the line! Woohoo!! So it looks like my research was right... they DO almost double the wait time of the ride at night. So instead of waiting the posted 130 minutes for the ride, it was more like an hour. After this waiting area where they count you off into groups of 16, they took us through two more "story rooms" where they told us that we were going to be able to be synced up with an avatar and get to ride a banshee.
Then we all came into the ride room and were able to get onto our own banshee with "safety glasses" on. Then we proceeded to fly through the world of Pandora on the back of the banshee. You could feel the banshee breath and move beneath you, and you could smell the area, and they misted you when you went passed water...and etc.. it was really neat. I would say that the closest thing I can relate it to would be Soarin. It was definitely a good ride and I can see why it's so popular. And even with all the hype around it, I still thought it was pretty cool. I don't know if there is ANY ride that I would ever wait 3-4 hours for though. If you want to ride this ride, I'd suggest either staying on Disney property and getting your fastpass at exactly 60 days out (people staying on Disney property told us these fastpasses were gone within a day or two of coming out), or if you can't get fastpasses... make this a rope drop ride or ride it at the end of the night like we did.
Our day at Disney was very jam packed and tiring... but also made me very happy. I love getting to keep up on all of the new things at Disney. So getting to experience the Toy Story Land, Soarin' Around the World, and the Pandora land was a highlight for me. Every time I go, it makes me want to spend more time there. I could spend a full day at each park and not mind, but Cody's not that into Disney so this is our compromise.
Our last day in Orlando was the first day that we actually slept in! I was SO tired and sore from all the walking that we did at Disney the day before... So we took it easy and hung out at the pools all day. We also finally got to spend some time with Cody's cousin, Sky and his girlfriend Liz. So we were hanging out in the pool together and they were talking about a wedding that they were invited to. I guess the wedding was the next day, but that night their friend was having a welcome reception. Can you believe it... their friend's wedding was on OUR resort! Like how crazy is that!?!? Of all the places their friend could get married in Orlando, and they were at our resort. Our resort had 7 towers (including the hotel they were getting married at) and a bunch of Sky's friends were staying in the same tower as us! So it was perfect for them to drink all day at the pool, go to the welcome reception and drink, and then go out with their friends and then they had our room to come back to at night to sleep in.
So they talked us into crashing their friend's welcome reception. Cody was all about free appetizers and beer haha. Luckily I packed a semi-decent dress to be able to go! I normally pack a bunch of dresses that I don't end up wearing, so this time I packed light.
The view from the 12th floor of the hotel where their party was at was so beautiful! You could see our whole resort (even though I couldn't get it all in a picture). And we were also able to watch the Hollywood Studios and then Epcot fireworks from there.
Here's the 4 of us hanging out! And this is the best picture of us that we got haha. I only stayed out for a couple of hours, because we had to leave pretty early in the morning for the airport and I wasn't packed yet. But Cody stayed out pretty late hanging out with all them, and made some friends by the end of the night. Everyone was shocked that he wasn't going to wedding the next day haha.
Our trip to Orlando was really great this year! We honestly could not have asked for more perfect weather. It was between 75-85 degrees and sunny every day that we were there. Our resort was also amazing. We loved it and spent a ton of time there. It's definitely on our list of places that we'd like to go back to in the future. I honestly wouldn't mind going back to Orlando soon again. It's one of my favorite places. :)
