A Trip of Firsts - The Fantastic, The Good, The Bad, and The Downright Ugly - Our July 2025 Trip to Disney World & Universal

[Skywatcher1206]

Welcome one and all to my trip report detailing our trip from July 15 - July 27 to Disney World & Universal. This trip was part of a multi-year vacation countdown to our oldest, Ethan going off to college soon. He is going into 10th grade this year.

Other vacations on the list include a Caribbean Cruise, and a trip to Alaska, and finally a graduate’s choice trip in 2028, which is currently looking like Japan. Because of this, I probably put way too much pressure on the trip, which caused some unnecessary stress. Overall, it was a good trip, with a few bad and ugly experiences thrown in.

If you looked at my PTR, it was a pretty ambitious trip for us. Here is the link: https://www.disboards.com/threads/a...l-july-15-july-27-2025.3969008/#post-66249512

We have not been on a weeklong trip to Orlando in a number of years (2022 was our last one), and never a week and a half. This was also our first trip doing Disney and Universal together in a trip.

With that introduction, I will go ahead and get started. My goal for this trip was to try some new things and I think we succeeded with that!

Tuesday, July 15 - We left 30 minutes later than anticipated due to last minute packing, and did not leave our house until 5:30 PM. This caused an issue with our dog boarder as she had to get her kids to VBS. Here is a pic of our sweet dog, Lucy.



She ended up coming to our house to pick up Lucy, which was VERY nice of her. Otherwise, it would have put us well over an hour behind. We stopped in Fayetteville, NC and had a not very good experience at Burger King which solidified why I hardly go there if I can help it. The chicken fries were hard like they had been sitting for quite a while. We drove through some rain storms. After a mostly inedible meal at Burger King, I saw one of my favorites,
Bojangles, and decided to stop. They had an AI ordering process which was neat as we had never seen that before. I ordered a kids meal of chicken supremes with honey mustard, and mashed potatoes. I gave the biscuit to my oldest and the lemonade to my youngest. All in all, this food put the Burger King to shame. We lost count of the work zones and lane closures on I-95 that we passed through, got to hotel about 12:15 AM. We were staying at a new to us brand, Tru by Hilton, in Brunswick. It was cute and comfortable, and I would stay again.

 

[kclark9830]

Joining in! Our trip dates overlapped a bit, as we checked in on the 26th .

 

[Nicnicnic.nic]

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[Skywatcher1206]

Wednesday, July 16:
Initial Plan: Arrive at Poly. Go to Blizzard Beach. Monorail Dinner Crawl. Appetizer at Poly (either Trader Sam’s or Tambu Lounge), dinner at Steakhouse 71, dessert at Grand Floridian (any ideas?). The firsts: the kids first time staying at Poly, free water park on check in day, Steakhouse 71

Actual: After waking up at 6:30 and unsuccessfully getting back to sleep, I finally got up and took a shower at 7:30AM. The shower did not get as hot as I typically like (think hot lava), but it had really good water pressure. We had hotel breakfast which consisted of a cheese omelet and machine made pancakes with apple juice for me, cereal for my youngest (Josh DS12), toast, cereal, and coffee for DH, and a cheese omelette for DS 15 (Ethan). We got packed up, and were on our way the rest of the way by 9:15AM. Ethan was driving the first leg!

We arrived around 12:30PM and went to our room as we got the text super early which was appreciated. We got 1st floor Pago Pago. I was initially wishing that we had gotten a different view as It was a parking lot view, but we were only here for 1 night and it turned out to be a great room. We were hungry for some lunch so we went to Captain Cooks. I got the shrimp noodles which I have gotten before and really enjoy, DH got the spicy chicken bowl, and 1 kid got Mac and cheese and the other got chicken tenders. Both came with fries and grapes. We all decided that we were not really in the mood for a water park, so we decided to skip the free water park for this checkin day, and just explore.

I got in line for Trader Sam’s around 1:30PM and shortly afterwards they started taking names. We were far enough forward in the line that our come back time was opening. We had a dessert of dole whips which were delicious after getting in line for Trader Sam’s. I shared the pineapple/vanilla swirl with DH, and a vanilla each for the kids. We stopped back by Trader Sam’s afterwards to move our arrival time back an hour.

We then took a monorail resort tour, stopping at Grand Floridian to look around, and stopping at MK in the middle to activate DS12 Josh’s annual pass as we are coming back in December just the 2 of us.




We did not stop at the Contemporary, but enjoyed riding through the building. We then looked around the Poly and Poly Tower. The tower itself was very pretty! We ended up getting our text for Trader Sam’s around 4PM. This was the kids first time here and we all enjoyed it. The kids each got the Schweitzer Falls, DH got a Longboard beer, and I got a Sprite.


After we spent some time enjoyed the ambiance, we then hopped on a bus to Disney Springs. We checked out the DVC lounge first which was pretty cool. We also tried a new to us item, the chicken coquettes at Pepe which were great, went shopping at a few stores. and had an amazing manager at Raglan Road get us a prime table without a reservation. The food, entertainment, and service were all excellent and to top it all off, we missed a huge downpour.



We shopped some more and then hopped on a bus back to Poly, which took a while to come. Once we got back to the resort, we heard the music for the Electrical Electric Parade so hustled to the shoreline, and watched that for a few minutes. Once that was over, we headed back to the room to relax and go to sleep.

While we did not go to Steakhouse 71, or do a monorail dinner crawl, or go to Blizzard Beach, we were very pleased with our arrival day, and we still got some firsts in.

The Firsts: Kids first time staying at Poly, Kids first time at Trader Sam’s, first time trying chicken coquettes at Pepe (seriously, try them), and first time shopping at Ron Jon’s Surf Shop.

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Joining in! Our trip dates overlapped a bit, as we checked in on the 26th .

Welcome! Hopefully you had or are still having a great trip!

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Following

Welcome!

 

[kclark9830]

Welcome! Hopefully you had or are still having a great trip!

We did! Checked out this morning!

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Thursday, July 17:

Initial Plan: Move to AKV Kidani. Go to Typhoon Lagoon. Go to Epcot Moonlight Magic event for DVC. The firsts: our first Moonlight Magic event (and hopefully first ride on reimagined Test Track if a preview is open during event)

Actual: Woke up around 7:30 after a really good night sleep. The Polynesian really does have the most comfortable beds! We got packed up and moved over to Animal Kingdom Kidani village, stopping at McDonalds on the way. Top tip, the McDonald’s app works here as well so got 20% off the meal! It was typical McDonalds breakfast and we had a little wait for the food as it was quite busy, but it hit the spot. Although we did the online check in, I still asked at the AKL front desk to see if there were any partial savannah view rooms available as we were in a standard view. After a quick phone call, we got it, and the room was available although it was only 10AM in the morning! It is right by the fence line, but still a partial savannah view room! The outside has a clicking sound, which is the electric fence, but it cannot be heard in the room at all. Below are some views for our room:




We then decided on Blizzard Beach. The kids forgot to pack a swimsuit for themselves, and we forgot to check (oops) so after a quick purchase at the parks gift shop, we had 2 swimsuits in hand and could start the fun! We started with the Red Slope tube slides, and then the family slide. It was a pretty busy day, I’m sure partly due to the free admission on check in day, but we got to do most of what we wanted to do. Most of the waits were about 15-30 minutes except for Summit Plummet which seemed to be an hour as I was waiting at the bottom with DH.

After the kids rode Summit Plummet, we went to Lottawatta lodge for my beloved chicken and rice bowl. They changed their recipe, but it was pretty good, and they added shrimp, which was good! We continued to play around the park riding all the slopes, until we decided that we wanted to rest in our room for a little while before our first time going to Moonlight Magic! We had ended up changing the dates of this trip to try to get DVC Moonlight Magic tickets for Epcot, and we ended up getting them! Stay tuned to hear if this change was worth it!

 

[disneyseniors]

Loving your TR ! What a wonderful thing to do for your son.
I had to laugh at your younger son. He is 12 and he's at that stage where he doesn't smile in photos! Our kids and grandkids were like that. No smiles, only "looks"

 

[kclark9830]

A great room view! Yay!

 

[GGOOFY1]

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Loving your TR ! What a wonderful thing to do for your son.
I had to laugh at your younger son. He is 12 and he's at that stage where he doesn't smile in photos! Our kids and grandkids were like that. No smiles, only "looks"

Thanks for joining! Lots of pics upcoming with slight variations of same looks. LOL

 

[Skywatcher1206]

A great room view! Yay!

We were very pleased with our room and the resort as a whole! One of our favs for sure!

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Welcome! Thanks for joining!

 

[erinch]

Here for the fun!

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Here for the fun!

Welcome! Thanks for joining!

 

[Stacybaeasm]

Great day at the water parks! I still (after more than 50 visits) haven't done the water park. Can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip!

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Great day at the water parks! I still (after more than 50 visits) haven't done the water park. Can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip!

I highly encourage you to check them out on your next visit, especially if you can swing it on your arrival day, and you are staying on site so it’s free. Thank for joining! More coming soon!

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Thursday, 3/17 (continued):

On the way out from Blizzard Beach, we ran into a character, and had to take a picture!



I had already changed, but everyone else decided to change back in the room.

After we rested in the room for about an hour or 2 and I took DS12 to the gym, we headed out to the bus stop at about 6:30 as we could get into Epcot at 7pm. The check-in was really easy and fast so by 7pm on the dot, we were inside.



We overall had a great night! We started with Spaceship Earth, then got some snacks with our 3 provided snack coupons. We started with Grab-N-Goof where I tried the Mac and cheese bites, and each kid tried the Goofy’s gone fishin’ slushy. Throughout the night, we were able to ride Spaceship Earth, Guardians of the Galaxy (through the Lightning Lane due to the CM liking my sons Savannah Bananas tshirt), Soarin, Living with the Land, and Frozen. We were in line to ride Remy, but unfortunately it broke down right before we were going to get on. We also got to see a special fireworks show and each got at least 2 ice cream treats. We also enjoyed maple popcorn, yummy cheese fries from Regal Eagle, and other treats.


I highly recommend that if you are a DVC member that you try to get into one of these events. It was AMAZING!

Literally the only things that did not go to plan was that my husband had wanted to use his snack coupon on a brat, but the Germany pavilion was not taking the coupon, although according to the coupon, they were supposed to be. Also, TT was not open during the event. Would we get to ride it later in our trip. Stay tuned to find out!

Firsts: First time at Moonlight Magic! First time trying some new treats.

 

[Stacybaeasm]

Ahh youth. In the waterparks all day, going to the park all night, and still wants to go to the gym. I might need your son to motivate me!