Day One: Travel + Disney Springs
It was about 1:30am and I was up for the day - it's finally Disney Day! Having booked this trip last September, it felt like our countdown was crawling by as we waited for our Disney Day. Our alarms were set to go off at 3:30am, but my body had other plans.
We hit the road at 4:45am and made it to the airport. I was super nervous about our luggage - we had A LOT of stuff with us, including extra clothes and everything you could need to beat the August heat. I'm super paranoid about our luggage weighing more than 50 pounds, so I bought a personal luggage scale before the trip, and the husband's bag weighed in, I think, around 46 or 47 pounds and I said to him, "but what if the airport scales are different!?" and he said that would be crazy..well, guess whose bag weighed 48 pounds at the counter?
TSA was a breeze; I'll be a little sad when DD12 turns 13, and we no longer get to "
lightning lane" our way through TSA when we travel.
Our go-to airport breakfast is always Chick-fil-a and with tummies full, we made our way to the gate to wait for our flight; we had an on-time departure of 7:25am.
I always grab a quick picture of the kids at the airport with the caption, "See ya real soon, Mickey!"
Before we knew it, we were wheels up and off to MCO! We had a mostly smooth flight thankfully, I nodded off for a bit which was nice since I already felt like I had a full day at that point. We landed at MCO earlier than scheduled and had to taxi for a bit before we could approach the gate.
After one quick trip on the mock monorail and a trek to get our bags, we arrived at Mears and waited less than 10 minutes to get on the bus to head toward Art of Animation!
I had previously checked in online and I kept checking my phone for our "room is ready text" that did not come; but, once we arrived at AoA and got off the bus, we were greeted by a Cast Member outside who asked us about our party and ta-da our room was ready! We did not know which theme of family suites we would have. DD12 was thinking Lion King, DS15 and I were hoping to be pixie-dusted with Nemo, and my husband was hoping for Cars.
We were booked to stay in the Lion King family suites! The theming is absolutely darling and DD12 was so excited.
We headed to our room and started to unpack and organize. We generally don't plan park days on our travel days (adult trips are the exception), so we had dinner booked at the Springs for 7:00 pm. We decided to head to the AoA food court to pick up our refillable mugs and have a quick lunch. I ordered the grilled chicken sandwich (which was delicious), DD12 had cheese pizza, DS15 had a burger, and the husband had a slice of pepperoni pizza. After lunch, we went to bell services to retrieve our grocery delivery from Garden Grocer. We went through nearly two big cases of water and 1.5 cases of Gatorade this trip!
Around 3:00ish we decided to head to Disney Springs to do a little shopping and exploring before dinner, but not without singing Hakuna Matata on the way...
okay, not without ME singing. I am the Disney fanatic of this family.
We arrived at Disney Springs and jumped in a few shops as soon as we got there. I love checking out what's new at Sugarboo & Co., I did not get anything this trip, but saw some really great stuff. I love that store so much! The husband wanted to pop into Columbia next door and then we made our way to Sephora, at the request of DD12, Ron Jon, and Kendra Scott, at the request of DS15.
That's right..Kendra Scott requested by a 15 year old boy.
My sweet baby boy, who is growing up far too quickly, wanted to buy his girlfriend a necklace unique to Disney Springs. He bought it with the money that he made from his summer job and had it gift wrapped. He was so proud.
I was too. Life comes at you fast.
We made our way further into Disney Springs with World of Disney as our destination. It was hard not to buy one of everything on the Halloween displays, but the trip had just begun, and the husband hasn't always been a fan of my needing to buy a new suitcase to bring souvenirs home in -- something that has happened every trip.
DD12 picked up a Pua stuffie that is the softest thing ever and I bought a Haunted Mansion spirit jersey. The husband branched off on his own to the Pandora counter; every Disney trip, he will buy me a Pandora charm that he will eventually surprise me with later, usually for by birthday. As I'll share throughout this trip report, my Pandora bracelet is taking a spooky turn and I can't wait to see which charm he picked out for me.
We decided to grab some drinks from the little dock bar across from World of Disney and sit for a minute. There was a duo singing there - they were incredible and I wish that I could remember their name. The Jammin betties come to mind, but I don't think that's it. Man, they were fantastic; they played yacht rock and classic rock.
After a nice break, but still with time to kill before dinner, we popped into the Savannah Bee Co,. DD12 wanted to try honeycomb. We sampled it and she ended up buying one and pretty much ate it the rest of the night. The husband wanted to go into the Art of Shaving, which was his favorite store at the Springs.
Was. It's gone!? I felt so bad for him. My husband is a super chill dude and doesn't ask for much, he's just happy to be there. Art of Shaving was the one store that he wanted to go to and he didn't bring his beard care kit with him because he knew he was going to s-h-o-p and maybe even get a shave.
Disappointed, we were still a little too early to check in for dinner, but luckily there was another band about to start at the deck area next to the Amphibicar Dock and we decided to grab a seat. Holy cow, these guys were great too! They started strong with 'Callin' Baton Rouge'..one of my favorite Garth Brooks songs and then played a good variety of songs.
The sun was starting to go down, and there was a nice breeze coming off the water. I was hot, but I definitely wasn't as hot as I thought I would be.
This would quickly become the theme of this trip, hence the title of this trip report.
We were finally ready to check in for our dinner reservations at Terralina, which is an Italian place in the Springs. I don't hear much about Terralina online, but we had a goal of eating at new-to-us restaurants during our trip and the husband loves Italian food. Overall we had a good experience there. We shared an order of mozzarella-stuffed rice balls to start with - they were absolutely delicious! The husband had the spicy capicola pizza, DS15 had shrimp scampi, and I had the wild mushroom risotto (which was fine, it would have been delicious with less cheese). The service was pretty good, and DD12 ate her entire meal, which was their housemade lasagna, which speaks volumes.
I don't think we'd care to return to Terralina, but again, we like to try to eat at new-to-us places on our trips. Until we run out..hah!
I wanted to try for Gideon's, but the line was bananas, so we decided to head to the other side of the Springs - I had Summer House on the Lake on my mind. DD12 wanted to pop into the soccer store, which was close by. I had not had any coffee until that point - crazy - and needed a pick me up. I grabbed an iced latte and a couple of cookies. The latte was delicious! We didn't eat the cookies until a few days later, and they were still very good.
Foot traffic was picking up in the area, so I suggested getting in the flow of traffic and heading to the drone show viewing area. The drone show, Dreams that Soar, is amazing, but it was tough being squeezed in with all of those people. We debated leaving more than a few times because that was miserable. That said, I am glad that we stayed because it was incredible, but it was a quiet walk back to the buses for our family lol!
I think we made it back to the room around 11:30 (that's a rough guess) and we quickly called it a night for when we would wake, it would be time for Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom!
That's all for today! I am excited to share this trip with all of you and continue the excitement until our next trip, just 53 days away!
Thank you all for joining along!
We live in the Baltimore/D.C. area with two kids (DS15 and DD12) and two cats, Floki and Gomez. We stayed in the Lion King family suites at AoA, August 14-21, 2024 with park hopper plus passes, and we enjoyed H2O Glow Nights at TL and the August 20th MNSSHP party.
first one with their popcorn!
