Penguinempress
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 11, 2015
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!
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!
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