It Only Gets Better From Here...Right?! WDW TR July 2025 LIVE update 7/28

[kclark9830]

Hi everyone! We are live this morning from Disney's All Star Sports Resort !

We checked in yesterday for our weeklong of fun...at least that's what we're hoping, because check in day didn't go so well . More on that later, and I think you'll totally understand this trip report title.

I've done a handful of trip reports over the years, most recently our Disney cruise from January. Let me re-introduce my family!


(Us last night in the pool at Sports)

We are Katie & Micheal, married for 22 years. With us are our kids Ashlyn and Miles. I'm a teacher and I help run a small private school. I'm also a writer. Micheal works for a large pest control company in the southeast, in the corporate office. He travels all over the southeast inspecting offices.

We're staying at Sports because we got the room for $99/night, and we honestly didn't plan on going to WDW this year at all, after taking our Disney Cruise. But when I saw the Disney+ subscriber deal, I was like...we could totally swing it. We made plans that changed a few times, with who was going and who wasn't, as well as which parks we were doing or weren't.

Do I prefer the nicer resorts? Yes I do . But seriously, this one is perfectly suitable and we are in Disney!!!

I will be getting into updates a little at a time, going backwards a bit to make travel day notes. For now, the family is sleeping in, and I am awake because I am always awake . So, I thought I'd go ahead and get this trip report started!

Our schedule this week looks like this:

Saturday - check in day/Blizzard Beach
Sunday - relaxation day/Disney Springs
Monday - Animal Kingdom
Tuesday - Magic Kingdom
Wednesday - Epcot
Thursday - Hollywood Studios
Friday - driving home, womp womp

I hope you'll join in!

 

[Wayland10]

Following!

 

[Nicnicnic.nic]

Following

 

[buzzrelly]

Joining in! I've always wanted to do a live-ish TR!

We checked in yesterday for our weeklong of fun...at least that's what we're hoping, because check in day didn't go so well

Oh no! can't wait to hear why!

We're staying at Sports because we got the room for $99/night,

Awesome deal!

 

[VAtink]

Joining in! Can't wait to read more!

 

[Noreen411]

Looking forward to hearing more…

 

[kclark9830]

Following!

Welcome

 

[kclark9830]

Following

Thanks for joining in!

 

[kclark9830]

Joining in! I've always wanted to do a live-ish TR!


Oh no! can't wait to hear why!



Awesome deal!

Thanks for joining in! It really is a great deal!

 

[kclark9830]

Joining in! Can't wait to read more!

Welcome!!!

Looking forward to hearing more…

Thanks for joining in!!!

 

[kclark9830]

Travel Days

Hi Again everyone! We are relaxing in our room before we head over to the food court for some supper.

I'll go ahead and give you a rundown of our travel days, which were Friday and Saturday (yesterday). It was a super busy week leading up to Friday. School is starting soon, and I have about a million things to get ready at the school before that happens. It was stressful, but by Thursday I finally felt like I'd done enough to focus on Disney .

Friday, hubby worked all day. We would be meeting up with my parents, and my sister and her family, to begin the drive to Orlando. My sister and her family are staying here at All Star Sports too, and my parents are over at Riverside.

The plan was to drive halfway Friday night, stop at a hotel, and finish the drive Saturday morning.

We did get a late start, but the halfway drive was uneventful. We were driving straight down Alabama, from top to almost the bottom! We got to our hotel shortly after midnight. It was a Hampton Inn in Dothan, and it was clean and comfortable. We had a nice big room.



Nothing fancy or unique, but we would be here only briefly. In the morning, we had breakfast in our hotel (not good ), and then we got back on the road.

Again, it was a completely uneventful drive. Saturday traffic was decent! Before long, we passed into Florida!



We stopped at two different rest stops, but shortly after 2pm we were passing under *the* sign!



I'm going to leave you there, and then we will get into what is the same day, but I'll call it *arrival* day . Again, this was only yesterday (Saturday), just to orient anyone reading this today (Sunday).

I'll be back!!!

 

[lauren_elizabeth]

I love that you're doing a live trip report! So fun!

 

[kclark9830]

I love that you're doing a live trip report! So fun!

I hope to keep up with it every day at least a little!!!

 

[kclark9830]

Animal Kingdom part 1

Today is our Animal Kingdom day! We're taking our midday break in our room currently, and will be heading back in about an hour. I'll give you a quick rundown of our morning. Eventually I'll add extra updates for our arrival day and Springs day .

We were out at the bus stop at 7:07. The bus times said bus would arrive at 7:08, but no. It was pulling out as we approached. Oh well. The next bus came within 10 minutes and we were the first on!

We had arrived shortly after that, and we assumed we would breeze through security. Again, no.

I held my umbrella out in front of me, and I had nothing else in my bag, but I still got pulled aside to be searched.

We ended up tapping in just after 7:30, but we didn't mind because we were not heading to FoP. Instead, we planned to hit every other ride in the park while wait times were low.

This turned out to be a GREAT plan. We did Navi as a walk on, then the Safari with probably 10 minutes of waiting.

First ride of the trip at Navi!



It was a great safari! We've never done it in the morning, and the animals were nice and active. The first animal we saw was an okapi. My son Miles had never seen one of these, and he yelled out, "It's a shape shifter!" That was great.

We saw very active hippos, zebras, giraffe, only one elephant, and cheetahs, lions, and painted dogs.

We power walked across the park to Expedition Everest. If it seems like we were on a mission, we definitely were. We wanted to hit all the rides without Lightning Lanes but still while they had low waits!

EE had a posted 20 min wait, but it ended up being only around 10. This was actually my first time riding EE, and Miles's first time, too.






So, Ashlyn and Micheal loved it (again). Miles and I...not so much . But we were not chickens. So mission accomplished.

When that finished, we headed on over to dinosaur. It was a walk on, and it was a fun, and kind of painful (haha) race against time.

Now we felt like we could relax! We wanted the strawberry ice cream sandwich from Dino Bites, but it was only 9:30, and DB didn't open until 11.

We decided to go to Kali River Rapids instead. It had a posted wait of only 5 minutes! Well, it ended up being 30 , but my sister and her family met up with us as we got in the line, and it was a fun wait with them.

Miles and I got soaked! It felt wonderful. Have I mentioned, it is HOT ?

When we were coming out of the exit, the monkey enclosure was super active. They were swinging and hee hee'ing and hoo hoo'ing. It was fun to watch!

Now we really needed a snack. I ate a yogurt for breakfast in our room, but no one else had had anything but water and Gatorade. So, we stopped at Tamu Tamu for dole whip!



Breakfast of champions?

By now, it was 10:40, and we were right beside Festival of the Lion King. The next show was at 11, so we hopped in line to enjoy the next show. We were in the elephant section.

I love the Tumble Monkeys!





Now we were done for the morning! It was a super successful morning, and we did everything we wanted except meet Dug and Russell. I do hate that, Miles wanted to meet them. Technically, if we left now, we could make it before they end for the day, but I don't think we're going to.

Tonight, our plan is to get in line for FoP, then eat at Rainforest Cafe with my sister and her family, and my parents! I'll update later to let you know how it goes!



Taken as we were leaving the park...