My wife and I just came back from 5 days in Orlando (12/7-12). We spent the first night at Universal's Royal Pacific and then the following 4 at the AKL Jambo house (DVC members).
The first day was probably the best. We took a late flight from Boston down to Orlando so we didn't check into the hotel until 11:30pm. It was our first time staying at Universal and the Royal Pacific turned out to be a really cool resort. We loved the Hawaii vibe and the outdoor areas.
We woke up early to get into the WWOHP before the general public and it was well worth losing the extra hour of sleep over! We were both wowed by the entire Harry Potter section and loved the fact that it wasn't very crowded at all, even with all of the resort guests making their way in. No waits for anything before 9:30! We were virtually finished with the WWOHP by 10am and explored the rest of Universal. There was virtually no wait for any of the other rides that we went on (Spiderman, ET, Jaws, Mummy, MIB...) even at 2pm.
After leaving Universal, we checked into the AKL lodge (no animals in sight - too cold) and then headed to the Boardwalk for dinner. We parked at the Beach Club and made our way around checking out the Christmas decorations at each hotel. When we stopped by the Dolphin, we were surrounded by a bunch of guys in suits - the MLB Winter Meetings were taking place.
As we were standing in the lobby, Kevin Millar walked by us and my wife shouted out his name. We talked to him for a few seconds, explaining that we were from Boston and he was really nice to us. We then sat down just to see if we could recognize anyone else. In the 30 minutes we spent there we saw Brian Cashman (Yankees GM), Nolan Ryan, Frank Robinson, Jayson Stark (ESPN) and the Rangers GM. One guy was standing around with a binder full of hundreds of autographed baseball cards. It was really neat! Then we went back to the hotel around 11 and saw Zebras outside our window. We only saw animals about 2 other times - probably because we weren't in our room very much.
The next day (Thursday) we spent at Hollywood Studios. It was very crowded due to a cheerleading competition. But we still managed to get on Toy Story Mania and a few other rides. Had lunch at Sci-Fi Diner and then headed over to the Polynesian for dinner at O'Hana's at around 9pm just in time for the firework over the Magic Kingdom.
Friday we spent the morning at DTD where it was surprisingly very crowded. Apparently there was a 20% off sale at the World of Disney store so that could explain it. I got to finally see D-Street in person (I'm a Vinylmation fanatic). We were able to trade 16 of our VM's throughout the parks and resorts!
That night we went to the Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom. It was a lot of fun to see the fireworks and the castle was gorgeous, but again, there were massive crowds. A 20-30 minutes wait for most rides up until 11:30 at night. We learned not to attend one of these on a weekend night ever again.
Saturday we spent at Epcot. There were a lot of people there as well, but the lines weren't too bad. Soarin and Test Track were busy as usual but the rest of the park was pretty accessible. We got to see Whoopi Goldberg read at the night-time ceremony - it was very well done.
On Sunday we hit up AK, but it rained most of the day. So we called it early and headed onto the airport for a very bumpy flight back to Boston.
The first day was probably the best. We took a late flight from Boston down to Orlando so we didn't check into the hotel until 11:30pm. It was our first time staying at Universal and the Royal Pacific turned out to be a really cool resort. We loved the Hawaii vibe and the outdoor areas.
We woke up early to get into the WWOHP before the general public and it was well worth losing the extra hour of sleep over! We were both wowed by the entire Harry Potter section and loved the fact that it wasn't very crowded at all, even with all of the resort guests making their way in. No waits for anything before 9:30! We were virtually finished with the WWOHP by 10am and explored the rest of Universal. There was virtually no wait for any of the other rides that we went on (Spiderman, ET, Jaws, Mummy, MIB...) even at 2pm.
After leaving Universal, we checked into the AKL lodge (no animals in sight - too cold) and then headed to the Boardwalk for dinner. We parked at the Beach Club and made our way around checking out the Christmas decorations at each hotel. When we stopped by the Dolphin, we were surrounded by a bunch of guys in suits - the MLB Winter Meetings were taking place.
As we were standing in the lobby, Kevin Millar walked by us and my wife shouted out his name. We talked to him for a few seconds, explaining that we were from Boston and he was really nice to us. We then sat down just to see if we could recognize anyone else. In the 30 minutes we spent there we saw Brian Cashman (Yankees GM), Nolan Ryan, Frank Robinson, Jayson Stark (ESPN) and the Rangers GM. One guy was standing around with a binder full of hundreds of autographed baseball cards. It was really neat! Then we went back to the hotel around 11 and saw Zebras outside our window. We only saw animals about 2 other times - probably because we weren't in our room very much.
The next day (Thursday) we spent at Hollywood Studios. It was very crowded due to a cheerleading competition. But we still managed to get on Toy Story Mania and a few other rides. Had lunch at Sci-Fi Diner and then headed over to the Polynesian for dinner at O'Hana's at around 9pm just in time for the firework over the Magic Kingdom.
Friday we spent the morning at DTD where it was surprisingly very crowded. Apparently there was a 20% off sale at the World of Disney store so that could explain it. I got to finally see D-Street in person (I'm a Vinylmation fanatic). We were able to trade 16 of our VM's throughout the parks and resorts!
That night we went to the Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom. It was a lot of fun to see the fireworks and the castle was gorgeous, but again, there were massive crowds. A 20-30 minutes wait for most rides up until 11:30 at night. We learned not to attend one of these on a weekend night ever again.
Saturday we spent at Epcot. There were a lot of people there as well, but the lines weren't too bad. Soarin and Test Track were busy as usual but the rest of the park was pretty accessible. We got to see Whoopi Goldberg read at the night-time ceremony - it was very well done.
On Sunday we hit up AK, but it rained most of the day. So we called it early and headed onto the airport for a very bumpy flight back to Boston.
