I'm back!!!!
DH and I (and family) are back from our week in WDW. And man, did we have a GREAT trip!! Honestly, this may be my favorite trip that I've ever taken. We had a great time from beginning to end with no issues all the way through.
We left Richmond last Saturday at 11:30 AM on SW. Our flight was so early getting into MCO that the pilot was actually worried they wouldn't have a gate ready for us when we landed, but we didn't end up having any problems. We only had about a 10 minute wait for DME and Pop ended up being the first stop for us. We had to leave our bags with the bell hop as our rooms weren't ready, which was fine since we were just heading to Disney Springs. We were in Disney Springs by 2:45 that afternoon!
I won't give all the details since we're all well-versed, but just in case anyone is wondering about our schedule:
Saturday- Disney Springs, dinner at Homecoming.
Sunday- MK all day with
MNSSHP that night. Ate at BOG for lunch and Columbia Harbor House for dinner. Even though we we didn't rope drop, we still got on SDMT first thing with only about a 15 minute wait.
Monday- HS in the morning, hopped to Epcot for lunch at Teppan Edo and dinner at various F&W booths. SWGE was amazing and I was in heaven. Single rider on Smugglers Run was great and got us through there in less than 5 minutes.
Tuesday- AK. Rode FOP twice with FPs

Dinner at Yak and Yeti.
Wednesday- Breakfast at Boma, back to MK. Dinner at Cali Grill, back to MK for HEA.
Thursday- Epcot in the AM, more F&W snacks for lunch. Hopped to HS. Ale & Compass for Dinner, then back to HS for Fantasmic and Star Wars fireworks.
Friday- EMH at HS for more SWGE. Hopped to AK for another ride on Everest and FOP. Hopped to Epcot for dinner at Chefs de France. Walked around World Showcase for a while again afterwards.
Highlights: Homecomin (why is it SO good?!), Cali Grill, SWGE, F&W. We ate a ton of stuff at F&W and really enjoyed it!
Lowlights: Ale and Compass (worst and slowest service I've ever had at a Disney restaurant), Chefs de France, crowds at MNSSHP.
This really was a truly fantastic trip and even our lowlights were not a big deal. DH and I both agreed we were glad we did MNSSHP because everyone enjoyed the show, parade, and fireworks. However, the crowds were ABSURD. It was significantly more crowded for the party than it had been in the park all day. We didn't ride anything other than Haunted Mansion and didn't trick or treat at all.
Crowds were definitely higher this week than they have been the last couple weeks based on what I saw in wait times. However, with proper planning we still never had long waits for anything. Transportation was great all week and we never had an issue with any buses whatsoever. We joked that our longest wait all week was the mobile order for our dinner at Columbia Harbor House lol.
Thank you SOOOO much for everyone who helped me take this trip by sharing all of our advice!! It truly was magical and we had a wonderful time. Our families really enjoyed it and get along great. DH, BIL, and I were on our own for about an hour at F&W last night and were laughing so hard walking around that I'm sure everybody thought we were wasted, but we were just genuinely having a great time!!
ETA: another highlight was meeting Joy and Sadness. My BIL bought the Rainbow Unicorn backpack in the park and carried it in there. We were also wearing our "this is a core memory day" t-shirts. They were so excited about our shirts and his backpack that we spent several minutes with them. Joy started motioning to one of the CMs and made it clear that she wanted to sign the backpack! So Joy and Sadness both signed the sides of his backpack, which he was thrilled about. Then Sadness wanted to hold it for the picture, so that was adorable.