So Happy Together - April 2016, MK and Epcot - Updated 07/31/2016

I’m a long time lurker on the DIS but this is my first time attempting a trip report – please be kind!

No huge cast of characters, just my husband Darren and myself (I’m Sandra). We love theme parks, animals and Florida. And I love taking pictures so expect lots!




We did a trip in 2015 so this trip (April 2016) we had more time to spend on new and different things we hadn’t done before (Discovery Cove, Sea World, Wild Florida, Madame Tussauds). In the interest of time, I think I’ll just write about our 2 Disney days here. I hope to write reviews of some of the other stuff later.

I’ve only stayed on Disney property once (Pop Century in 2011) and it was not the right choice for us. So for our 2015 trip and this year, we stayed at the Drury Inn in Orlando and it was great. The hotel was super clean, quiet, staff were really friendly and helpful and you can’t beat all the free inclusions (parking, wifi, 15 minutes long distance to Canada daily, breakfast, alcoholic drinks & food at the 5:30 kickback. And free popcorn in the lobby, one of Darren’s favorite features!). It’s really close to Universal, close to Disney and walking distance to tons of restaurants and attractions on International Drive. We paid less than $100 a night and got a free upgrade to a suite at check-in. If you have a car and don’t care about having a giant resort-like pool, I’d totally recommend the Drury.

Sunday April 10th was the first of our two Disney days - the Magic Kingdom!!! This was definitely one of the days I was most looking forward to and it didn't disappoint.

After (free!) breakfast at our hotel, we drove to the TTC. I had to pick up our tickets there anyways - I'd purchased them on-line a few months ago but you had to pay $25 or something to have them shipped to Canada - no thank you! We also got a birthday button for Darren. His actual birthday was a week before but hey, we're still celebrating and I thought he'd like the extra attention for a day. We decided to take the monorail over to the park, thinking it would be faster than the ferry. Well, it would have been faster if the monorail had actually been running. There was one at the station when we got there but there was some kind of problem so they had to unload it and get a new train in there. Once the new train was loaded, we continued to wait...and wait... So we didn't get to the park before or right at opening as I'd hoped but I think it was just after 9 by the time we arrived. After taking a million pictures with the castle (a must, no matter how many pictures I already have), we headed to Space Mountain. It's so much fun that we rode it twice. Darren had me cracking up with his ride photos. On rides like Space Mountain or the Aerosmith coaster at HS, I'm always worried that my purse is going to go flying out of the vehicle or I'm going to smash my camera or something. So Darren offers to hold my bag on those rides and it makes for some entertaining photos.



Just seeing the entrance to parking excites me!













I stopped to take a picture of this guy then he spotted Darren’s birthday button. “Wait, you should be sitting here instead of me! Happy birthday!”
















You know I’ve been making him pose too much when he starts getting sassy.




Space Mountain!



The line was really short so we rode twice. After Space Mountain, we headed over to Adventureland and did Pirates of the Caribbean and the Jungle Cruise. Probably waited less than 10 minutes for each. Darren loves the Jungle Cruise, the cheesy jokes are totally his style. Next up was the Little Mermaid ride. We'd never rode it before and I wanted to make sure that on this trip, we had time for all the things we'd skipped on previous trips. We rode the train then our Fast Passes started around noon - Peter Pan, Splash Mountain then Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

When it was time for Splash, we were getting into a hotter part of the day and the standby line was really long (so glad we had Fast Passes!). As we were walking through the queue, Darren accidentally stepped on the back of my shoe, just as I was lifting up my foot to take a step. The result was a rip in my beloved pink Tevas, booooo! Thankfully it wasn't as bad as I initially feared - one of the straps had been torn loose from the base but the way the shoe was constructed, it was still firmly on my foot, not flipping and flopping around as I walked. Darren sort-of crammed the broken strap back into the shoe's base and they made it through the rest of the day with no problem. It was such a relief as that’s pretty much a nightmare scenario - the last thing you want at for a long day at a theme park is problems with your shoes. Later in the trip, he got some epoxy and actually managed to completely repair them, you'd never know anything happened. Which is awesome because they're such great shoes and a must for vacations like this with tons and tons of walking. According to Darren's iPhone, we walked almost 20km during our day at the Magic Kingdom.



Jungle Cruising.










Splash Mountain!






Our ride pic cracks me up.









View of the Contemporary from the train.



Monorail!



The raft to Tom Sawyer’s island.



The Liberty Belle.





The Beast’s castle.



After Splash Mountain, we were both hungry for lunch. We couldn't find anything appealing in Frontierland so we walked over to Adventureland and came across the Skipper Canteen. It didn't sound familiar, even after all my pre-trip research. Admittedly, I don’t spend much time on restaurant research (I can almost hear all you foodies screaming in horror, sorry!). Darren and I have both lost weight in the past 2 years (90 pounds for him, almost 60 for me) so we try to eat pretty healthy, even when on vacation. So food isn’t a big thing for us. I found out later the Skipper Canteen is still pretty new so that probably explains why I hadn’t heard of it. But when we asked at the hostess stand, they were able to get us right in. Awesome! We were already doing dinner at Be Our Guest that evening so this felt like a bit of a splurge (as opposed to just doing fast food) but it was totally worth it. Having a quiet lunch in a relaxed environment instead of standing in more lines to get your food and then fighting crowds and strollers to find a table to sit at - totally worth the extra money.

The restaurant had a Jungle Cruise theme, with the staff all staying totally in character the entire time - stuff about your food being shipped in since we're supposed to be in the middle of the jungle ("Ok, I got your orders...your food should arrive in 3 weeks.") or referring to my Diet Coke as "diet mud." Silly stuff but perfect for Darren, especially since he loves the Jungle Cruise so much. He was really getting into it with his own jokes (At the end of the meal: "Can you split the bill?" "Certainly." "Great! Give half to that table over there and half to the table beside us!" Groan!) The décor was sort-of interesting as well - we were in the main room which wasn't all that special but to get to the bathroom, you walk through this bookcase:



The actual food was decent - they brought us bread and some kind of honey dip (which Darren loved), I had chicken and Darren had some kind of steak salad.





Towards the end of lunch, I realized that our Fast Pass window for Big Thunder Mountain was almost up, I'd totally forgotten about it. I went onto the Disney app to see if I could bump it to a later time but all the Fast Passes were gone for the rest of the day. We realized that if we walked quickly, we just might make it so we hauled a$$ over to Frontierland and managed to make it, whoo!

Next up on the 'things we've never done before' agenda was taking the raft over to Tom Sawyer's island. Darren liked exploring the island and it was nice to be somewhere that wasn't crowded, since we were in the hottest and busiest part of the day. When we were going through some 'secret' tunnel, there was a little girl (maybe 5 years old) standing in there in a dark corner. Not moving, not saying anything, just standing there. Creepy. I ignored her and kept walking, with Darren right behind me. Apparently she started walking behind him and then smacked him on the a$$ twice. The second time she did it, he turned around and said something to her. She told him she was hiding in the dark to "scare grownups. I even made one man say, 'Holy s$*t!'" Hahaha!

































What else? We took a ride on the Liberty Belle steamship, did the Haunted Mansion (we waited until later in the day and managed to walk right on, no line!!!!), Monsters Inc Laugh Floor (again, something we'd never done on prior trips). We rode the Peoplemover, It’s a Small World, Buzz Lightyear (as usual, my score was dismal compared to Darren's) and went to meet Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck. The final thing we did before our dinner reservations was the Country Bear Jamboree. We'd never done it before (well, maybe I saw it as a kid but Darren and I hadn't experienced it on our prior trips) and Darren loved it. Ha! He's really into bluegrass music lately so he was totally digging these singing bears.



It's a Small World! I used to love love love this ride when I was a kid. It drives Darren kinda loopy but I still think it’s cute.






Penguins!




















Daisy Duck wanted to talk shoes.




Minnie Mouse!






The stretching room at the start of the Haunted Mansion – love!




On board the Liberty Belle.

















Hey, it’s getting dark. Time to take some more pictures of the castle.








And from the back…




Country Bear Jamboree!



So cheesy but totally adorable.

We had dinner reservations for 8:50 at 'Be Our Guest' and we ate in the rose gallery room but after we finished, we walked around to see the other rooms. The main ballroom was very pretty. Darren and I both had chicken and the food was actually really good. I wasn't planning on getting dessert but after your meal, they wheel this dessert cart right up to your table and leave it there for a few minutes for you to stare at. TORTURE. The strawberry cream cheese cupcake looked too good to pass up and I'm glad I didn't because it was sooooo delicious. Mmmmmm! Our server spotted Darren's birthday button and brought him a free dessert (a bit of 'the gray stuff' with a candle in it) and a birthday card signed by Belle and the Beast. On our way out, we met our host, the Beast himself. It was a fun experience, I'm glad I managed to get reservations, especially since I only booked 2 weeks in advance. I originally wasn’t going to book any ADRs but I thought I’d check for a BOG dinner reservation and got lucky.



Darren: “Are my fingers messing up your artistic shot?”



It was dark and hard to get decent pictures.






My dessert – so good!











The Beast!

On our way out of the castle, we heard this booming noise outside – Wishes!!!! The fireworks were just starting so we got to watch the show from just outside Beast's castle in Fantasyland.

It's funny - I originally had this big internal debate about the fireworks. We've never seen them but everyone says they're so amazing that you've GOT to see them. But I also know the crowds are huge, all of Main Street fills up so early. Once the fireworks are over, it's a mad crush of people trying to exit the park all at once. I knew that kind of thing would give Darren and I extreme rage - people packed into an area like sardines, people pushing, shoving...finding the perfect spot then having someone put their kid on their shoulders so you can't see anything. Then having to deal with the crowds and strollers and masses of people exiting the park... I like fireworks but I hate people, Darren hates crowds so it just sounds like a disaster. I didn't want to spoil a great day at the Magic Kingdom by ending it this way so I'd decided ahead of time that we wouldn't wait around for fireworks. But now we got to see them anyway (in a totally non-crowded environment). Yes, it's not the same view you'd get if you were on Main Street and seeing the fireworks with the castle in the foreground but it was actually really neat to have the fireworks going off all around us (since some were behind us, some were in front...every direction, fireworks!) And once the show was over, we went over to Tomorrowland and rode Space Mountain and the Peoplemover while all the crowds dispersed. When we got off the Peoplemover and went to exit the park, the crowds were totally gone. Awesome. We took some nighttime photos of the castle (this was the first time we'd been at Magic Kingdom in the dark and it was neat to see the park lit up) then took the monorail back to parking (and the parking tram back to the car). It was after 11:30 by the this time, definitely much alter than I'd expected we'd stay. But it was really a fabulous (magical!) day.



Fireworks! I couldn’t get any decent pictures with my camera (I really needed a tripod or something) so I just watched but Darren took some video and photos with his phone.




Darren wearing my purse for Space Mountain, hahaha!




One last ride on the Peoplemover.

Sounds like a wonderful day. You took some beautiful photos. I'm hoping that we get across to Tom Sawyer island for the first time this August and I'm dragging my boys to country bear jamboree - I saw it in Disneyland thirty-something years ago!!

sarahb74 said:

Sounds like a wonderful day. You took some beautiful photos. I'm hoping that we get across to Tom Sawyer island for the first time this August and I'm dragging my boys to country bear jamboree - I saw it in Disneyland thirty-something years ago!!

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Thanks! I'd definitely suggest doing Tom Sawyer's island in the afternoon - it was such a nice break from the crowds during the hottest and busiest part of the day.

Great day at the Magic Kingdom!! Congrats to both of you on your weight loss - I'm trying so hard to lose 40 lbs and it seems to be taking forever I had to chuckle about that little girl on Tom Sawyer's Island - wonder where her parents/guardians were?!! That was probably the oddest thing I've heard happen at Disney!

Love you pics! So clear - esp of the Cinderella's Castle. I could take a ton of pics of it - so pretty esp at night time.

Sounds like you had a great time with a laid back attitude! Your pictures are amazing! What type of camera do you have?

heaven2dc said:

Great day at the Magic Kingdom!! Congrats to both of you on your weight loss - I'm trying so hard to lose 40 lbs and it seems to be taking forever I had to chuckle about that little girl on Tom Sawyer's Island - wonder where her parents/guardians were?!! That was probably the oddest thing I've heard happen at Disney!

Love you pics! So clear - esp of the Cinderella's Castle. I could take a ton of pics of it - so pretty esp at night time.

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Thanks so much! I always take a million pictures of the castle (from every angle), it's so pretty I just can't resist!

We wondered the same thing about the little girl - we didn't see any adults around. It was definitely a bizarre encounter!

Good luck with your weight loss! I always tell myself that slow progress is better than no progress so don't get discouraged.

Criickette said:

Sounds like you had a great time with a laid back attitude! Your pictures are amazing! What type of camera do you have?

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Thanks! My camera is a bit of an older model, a Nikon D3000. A few of the ride pics were taken with my husband's iphone - they look really grainy so you can totally tell the difference between those and the ones from the 'real' camera.

Finally getting around to the second day of my Disney trip report. Wednesday April 13th was Epcot, our second and final Disney day for this trip. We went to Epcot in 2011 but skipped it in 2015. Since we'd just been to Universal and the other Disney parks (Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios) last year, it felt a bit soon to go back so that's why we decided to do Epcot instead. We had a fun day but I'm not in a rush to go back - Epcot is definitely my least favorite Disney park. Too much food & drink, not enough rides. At least the flower and garden festival was on while we were there so the park was full of interesting topiaries.

We got there shortly after park opening and after taking obligatory photos with the dome, we headed to Innoventions. We wanted to do the Sum of All Thrills before lines got long, since there’s no Fast Pass available. Simulators sometimes make me feel sketchy but this one was totally fine...other than the fact that we designed our ride to go upside down and I felt my dress flying up as the robotic arm flipped us upside down. Hey people of Epcot, check out my panties!















The Sum of All Thrills - fun!


Also inside the Innoventions building was the Power of Color exhibit . You had to try and create specific colors (ie. a paint can would light up in a certain shade and you had maybe 30 seconds to figure out what different mix of colors would replicate that color...I totally sucked). We also got to paint a virtual mural.













Working on our mural.

Next up was Club Cool. I thought most of the different drinks were pretty gross, I'll stick to my Diet Coke. But Darren really liked some of them, this was one of his favorite parts of Epcot.











We headed to Spaceship Earth since it was time for our Fast Pass. Something must have gone wrong with the camera at the start of the ride because Darren and I have no faces in the future, hahaha!







We rode the Land then the Seas with Nemo and Friends. Soarin' was closed (which is too bad because we didn't get to ride on our 2011 trip either). I enjoyed watching the manatees after the Nemo ride, slowly rolling around and chomping on lettuce.



















MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!






There was a butterfly tent set up for the flower and garden festival so we took a walk through that then did Journey Into Imagination with Figment. We hadn't done this on our previous trip to Epcot so it was a new experience (and a walk on, there was no one in line! Which is odd, because the sign outside advertised a wait time of 35 minutes). That song about using your imagination got stuck in my head for hours afterwards.

Not sure if anyone is even reading this but I guess I'll finish it off.

It was time for lunch and it was starting to get really hot. We ate at the Boulangerie Patisserie in France, I had a croque monsieur (it was pretty decent) and we split a giant chocolate chip cookie. We stopped in Mexico for the Gran Fiesta Tour then it was time for our Test Track Fast Pass. It was definitely my favorite ride at Epcot. I didn't remember much about it from our 2011 visit but apparently it's been changed a lot since then, including designing your own vehicle as part of the queue.




























Not going to lie, our car was a hot mess.

After Test Track, we walked around the World Showcase. We'd seen a bit when we had lunch in France and did the Mexico ride but wanted to do a proper loop and check everything out. We checked out exhibits in China then watched the "Reflections of China" movie. The movie sounded like a good idea (a chance to take a break in air conditioning!) but when we got inside, we saw you had to stand. Darren: "Oh, great! After walking miles in the heat, I was really hoping it would be a standing movie!" Hahaha! I find it's the standing that gets you - just standing in one spot for 20 minutes is a lot more tiring than walking around. At least we hadn't really waited in line for anything all day (thanks to Fast Pass and the fact that there generally were no lines).



There were lots of beautiful orchids in the park.











Terra cotta warriors. Darren was amused that one guy was smiling while the rest all look deadly serious.

As we kept walking, it kept getting hotter. This was the only day of the trip I remember being really hot. The rest of the time, weather was very comfortable - nice and warm, sunny but not super hot and sweaty. But while we were walking around the World Showcase, it seemed really hot and there wasn't enough shade. It didn't help that there wasn't much of interest there. I know a lot of you love World Showcase but I really don't get the appeal. We watched the movies in China and Canada (we missed the one in France). We rode the boat in Mexico. But other than that, World Showcase is just gift shops and restaurants. When it's hot, the last thing I want to do is get super drunk on $10 or $12 drinks so I wasn't interested in drinking around the world. Same thing with food - we had lunch but I don't have the appetite (or budget) to buy different food from each country. We walked through most of the gift shops but I'm not really in the market for German beer steins or Chinese samurai swords. I did buy a strawberry slushy drink that was delicious and refreshing but that's it. Don't get me wrong - it was still very enjoyable to take in the sights and check out all the topiaries but it's not like I'm in a huge rush to go back.




Poor Darren, I kept hitting him in the head with my mouse ears.















We were very amused by the items in the Canadian gift shop.


After World Showcase, we checked the line at Test Track (45 minutes, no thank you) then did Ellen's Energy Adventure. When that was over, we did one more ride on Spaceship Earth and I'm glad to say that we had faces this time!






We got a few more photos then headed for the parking lot. It had been gray for the last hour or so but just as we were getting to the car, it started to pour. Great timing. This was actually the only time it rained on our entire 2 week trip, which is pretty awesome.





Thanks for reading!