Day 1 - Double the park, double the fun
As always, I took the earliest JetBlue flight out of Bradley, which meant waking up at 5:30 to get to the airport by 6:30 for an 8 a.m. flight. I was able to catch a quick nap on the plane, recharging myself for an exciting -- and long -- day. I landed at MCO shortly after 10:30, and was on the DME by 11. Unlike my last trip, this DME bus pulled out almost immediately after I got on board (it wasn't a full bus, but I was the last person on). Animal Kingdom Lodge was the second stop, but I still hit the lobby before noon.
When I'd done online check-in, I'd requested a room close to the lobby, since I didn't want to have to walk too far for the buses in the morning or back to my room at night. They didn't have one available, but they did have a room just one "block" over, which was close enough for me. I really enjoyed the theming of the room, though I kind of wish I'd sprung for the savannah view.
I put my bags away, then hopped on a bus over to DHS, and was inside the park by 1 p.m. After a stop at Guest Services to purchase Express Transportation, I loaded up the
MDE app and checked out the wait times for various attractions -- mostly to see how much I could vary from my plan, which I'd laid out to the minute in the weeks before. "Star Tours" was showing as a 10-minute wait (which I know from experience basically means it's a walk-on), but it was so far geographically from everything else in the park that I wanted/needed to hit, so I said to myself "stick to the plan" and headed straight for One Man's Dream.
First up was the character meet with Star Lord and Baby Groot, which was the primary reason I added DHS to my plan to begin with. The posted wait time was 30 minutes, and it was really only about 20 until I was in the room with them. The Baby Groot animatronic is incredible, and worth the wait on its own. The guy playing Star Lord doesn't particularly look like Chris Pratt, but he made up for it by being playful, engaging, and knowing his stuff about the character. When he came up to me in line, I had my iPhone blasting "Hooked on a Feeling", and he immediately went "Hooked on a Feeling, Blue Swede! 1973!" We talked about his new Zune and I told him that the next time he was on Earth, he needed to upgrade to an iPod touch. He asked the PhotoPass photographer "Have you heard of this iPod thing? Does it hold 300 songs?" When the photographer told him it held way more than that, he went "MORE than 300?! That's crazy!"
From there I took the short walk over to Star Wars Launch Bay to meet BB-8. I was surprised that it was only posted as a 15-minute wait, but that made more sense when I got to the end of the line and saw there were multiple doors, splitting up the line and getting twice as many people through in the same amount of time. I don't know what I expected, but I was kind of underwhelmed with the BB-8 meet. It played some beeping sound effects and his head moved around a little bit, but that was it. But hey, I got a picture with a full-sized BB-8, and that's cool enough for me.
Because both meet and greets had gone so quickly, and the timing worked out that there'd only be a 5-minute wait for it, I decided to hop into the next showing of "Voyage of the Little Mermaid", which I always love. It's not the longest or best of the live/puppet shows, but it's worth it to me every time to hear "Part of Your World."
Once that was over, I started to head up Sunset Blvd to make my way toward the express transportation spot. I decided to stop off real quick at the drink cart just outside of Once Upon a Time, where I got the first of many adult beverages on my trip. I forget exactly what it was called (Sunrise was definitely in the name) and exactly what was in it (tequila was among the ingredients), but it tasted really good and wasn't pre-mixed. The bartender was incredibly generous with the tequila portion too, so I got a nice strong drink -- just in time to go on Tower of Terror.
In my original plan, I always left some flexibility for myself to do Tower of Terror or Rock 'N' Roller Coaster, and since ToT had the much shorter posted wait time (30 minutes vs. 65), I picked that one. It turned out to be an even better choice when I got to skip about half the line after the show portion of the queue when they needed a solo rider to fill a spot. I tried to take a POV video of the ride, but it turns out that it's mostly darkness with brief seconds of light flying by, but it was still lots of fun. After the ride, I of course had to get a selfie with #BellhopStitch, one of my favorite random things about DHS.
Upon leaving ToT, I decided to pick up another beverage, this time the Frozen Strawberry-Lemon Sunset from the Joffrey's cart by the exit. This is another drink where the alcohol isn't pre-mixed into the slush, so it can get pretty strong if you have a friendly server, which I did. I took the short walk over to the express transportation pickup spot, and caught a quick, comfortable ride over to the Magic Kingdom.
The one downside to entering MK this way, as opposed to the front gate, is you don't get that magical moment where you see the flowers in front of the train station, then Main Street, then the castle. Sure, I like Tomorrowland, but walking into the park and being greeting by the queue for Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin isn't as magical.
My first stop at MK was for the character meet with Merida, since hers was one of two signatures I needed to complete my collection of signed Princess Portraits (comic artist Joe Eisma has been drawing Disney Princesses each month for me as a Patreon reward). Merida loved the portrait, as did the castmembers in the area with her, and the whole thing from getting in line to finishing took a mere 40 minutes, which left me plenty of time to make my FastPass window for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
BTMRR is one of my top 5 favorite rides at WDW, so I was more than happy to make it my first choice at MK on this trip. Thanks to my careful planning, my next FP was right next door at Splash Mountain, and I was more than happy to walk right on and bypass the 85-minute standby wait. I ended up in the first row of my log for the first time I can remember, got refreshingly soaked, then hopped on the railroad to ride over to Fantasyland.
From there it was a short walk to Tomorrowland, where I saw the PeopleMover was a walk-on, so I, well, walked on. I didn't do the PeopleMover at all during my last trip, which I regretted, so I was determined to spend some time there. I ended up riding it twice to kill some time before my Space Mountain FP.
For a while, Space Mountain was my favorite ride at WDW, but I think those days might be behind me. The first big jolt the car makes, right when it's hitting the chain, does a number on my back. That, combined with how difficult it is for me to get out of the car, might be enough to keep me off of it for some time (note: I'll forget all of this by the time I go back to WDW in December and inevitably ride SM again, because nostalgia is potent).
After SM, I had some time to kill before my dinner ADR, so I headed inside Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, just to take advantage of the air conditioning, and got to experience something I never had before. No, sadly I still wasn't "that guy" (one day though!) but I saw someone flip off the camera during the show. I was honestly shocked anyone would do that, and obviously they didn't show him again, even when running through everyone at the end.
After that surprising experience, I went to have dinner at Tony's. I'd heard some bad things about it, but I decided to make a reservation there anyway, since it was the only place that had availability around 8pm -- which would allow me to finish dinner just in time to walk out and see Happily Ever After. It turned out to be pretty good, actually. The pizza wasn't bad, though I'd still take Via Napoli over it ever time, the cheesecake was perfect, and my service throughout the night was among the best I'd ever had at a WDW restaurant: drink refilled before I'd even ask, meal and dessert out quickly after being ordered, and check delivered and picked up in more than timely fashion. I sat down at 8 and was out the door at 8:50.
The viewing area for HEA was very crowded, but I managed to find a decent spot halfway up Main Street with about a minute to spare. The show exceeded every expectation I had for it. I'm not ready to say it's better than Wishes, but I will say that it didn't leave me longing for Wishes, which is what I was worried about. The projection part of the show is incredibly beautiful, and the fireworks were spectacular.
Most of the crowd headed out of the park at this point, but I decided to stick around for Once Upon a Time. My legs were getting tired (as was my rest of me, thanks to the early wake-up time), so when I spotted an open table at the Plaza's outdoor area, I grabbed it. It wasn't the best viewing angle for the show, especially as some people filled in the walkway in front of it, but it was good enough. In this case, I will say that I definitely liked "Celebrate the Magic" more, but OUaT was still pretty good.
I ended my night back at Animal Kingdom Lodge, where upon arriving I realized -- only after getting out of the elevator on my floor -- that I'd forgotten my room number. Thank goodness for the MDE app, which saved me from having to go all the way back to the lobby. I got to my room, turned on the TV and eventually faded off to sleep, with another long but exciting day ahead of me.
