(Updated 5/11) Gonna Have to Buy a New House! - Jan 2025 TR

[Araminta18]

Hi! I just love your trip report so much! You have such a great writing style, and you two have such a great time together. You are so in-sync and enjoy each other’s company - I truly love that! Just so much fun to read! Thank you for taking the time to write.

aw, thank you so much! Such nice compliments! Thank you for the kind words - and for reading! I write mostly for me to be able to relive it and refer back to (there are several times when we'll be at a restaurant at Disney and Trevor will ask me what we got last time we were there and I'll pull up my reports lol), so I'm glad others find them a little bit interesting!

 

[Araminta18]

Shows and Snacks - Tuesday Jan 28th 2025 (part 4)​

The virtual queue to meet Joey Chou worked pretty well - I only waited about 20 minutes in line ("only").

He was also super nice - it was fun talking to him about his ideas and such, and then I didn't realize that my phone case (bought from Festival of the Arts back in 2019) was a piece of art of his! It's very different from the cute aesthetic his Disney art seems to have been focused on for the last few years, so I didn't realize, but we talked about that for a bit (esp cause I didn't realize it was his artwork!)

10 minutes later (a little before 3:30) I was back in the room: nap time! We rested for about 90 minutes, before getting up and heading to the 5:30 concert. Those midday breaks are the best - Trevor was always on board; I was a bit skeptical but now after several trips, I'm a convert. So worth it!

We got to the America Gardens Theater at 5:07 and while the left hand side reserved seating was more full than I'd like (all the spots close to the center were full), the right hand side was pretty empty, so we got a center seat in the front row. Woo!

Patti Murin and John Riddle were on tonight.

Since the show didn't start for 22 minutes, I decided to run over to the Italy food booth and get some snacks!

Kind of a long line, but not horrible - not like it's been in the past. This picture was taken at 5:15, and then next picture I have is with Trevor back in the theatre at 5:23, so only 5 min or so. Not bad! What'd we get?

Mozzarella thing. I got this last year and while it absolutely is very overpriced, I liked it and the sauces. It was just as good this year - no idea what any of the sauces are but I liked the pink sauce best.

Then I got the raviolis:

These were just meh - the sauces were cold! and the raviolis were warm, not hot, so overall it was a bit of a meh dish. Would have been better if it was warm.

Then time for the show!!

This was so fun - they were having just tons of fun being together. She was the original Anna in Frozen and he was the original Hans, so they told some fun stories about that. It was a great concert.

Them now, and when they were in Frozen on Broadway!

After the show, time for more food booths! We were planning to head to China, but as we passed Germany they had the band out so we had to stop and watch a little bit.

The entertainment at Epcot is top notch

Then, China booth! The line was not long at all, which was nice. We got all three dishes on the menu despite them being overpriced (it's an Epcot festival, that goes without saying). First up, the General Tso’s Chicken Shumai: Dumplings filled with chicken, potato, onion, and water chestnut topped with General Tso’s sauce:

I liked the watercress and cucumber at the bottom. And not very spicy, which was good.

Then the Har Gow: Shrimp dumplings with pumpkin purée and drizzle of chili oil and Egg Tart: Hong Kong-style egg custard tart.

The shrimp dumplings were very shrimpy (too shrimpy for me), but I did like the pumpkin puree and the herbs. This one had clearly been sitting out for a little bit cause the tops of the dumplings were dried out and a bit hard.

As for the egg tart, it was good, but a bit odd - warm sweet scrambled eggs. I wasn't expecting it to be so warm! Sweet, but eggy. Somewhere between sweet scrambled eggs and a custard.

Next up, Mexico! The line to pay at Mexico was super short but the line to pick up the food was super long. Apparently the carne asada was taking a while. First up, Natilla de Maiz: Creamy corn custard with caramelized sugar:

This was so odd. It tasted like canned corn soaked in milk and a little bit of sugar. Not great. Though I did like the salty bites of actual popcorn on top, that was good. But yea we wouldn't get this again. Not good.

Then the Croqueta: Chipotle chicken and chorizo croquette in chipotle salsa with chipotle aioli, avocado mousse, and truffle oil :

This was spicy, but a bit of sweet spiciness. Croquetas aren't my favorite (I don't love the texture) but overall good for what it was.

(Picture limit!)

 

[Araminta18]

Chalk Art and Pictures - Tuesday Jan 28th 2025 (part 5)​

And finally, the Carne Asada: Ancho-marinated beef sirloin with pasilla chile sauce, grilled queso fresco, nopales salad, and chicharron dust.

First off thought - $10.25 for TWO PIECES OF MEET ARE YOU KIDDING ME. I realize last post I literally just said that it's an Epcot food festival, prices are expensive but seriously, $10.25 for two pieces?! Bonkers insane. That being said, it was good flavor and I loved the fried cheese. Just can't stomach that price.

We made our way from World Showcase in the more front of the park - I wanted to watch the shows on Spaceship Earth a bit, and get some more magic shots, so off we went. I made us walk by the chalk art though, cause it's awesome!





Salt Bae Thanos! LOL

Then, pictures!


Props!

Magic shots with the props - lookit Mickey there!

Then, since we were right there, we decided to get the picture where they have the lightstick behind you. The line didn't look super long - maybe 5 people in front of us? But we ended up waiting 33 MINUTES. They took 10 minutes with this first family, and then were swapping out CMs, and then took 5 minutes each with the next few groups (lots of taking the picture, then showing the family and everyone oohing and aahing, and then getting set up again for shot number two...), and then finally realizing that "huh this is maybe taking too long" and starting to rush people through. We were done in about a minute, which was nice but also kind of aggravating when we'd just been watching them take so long and do SO MANY shots with the groups before us. Blargh. I think I was just grouchy.

The pics turned out pretty well - I'll have to put the other two in the next post.

 

[Araminta18]

All the pictures! - Tuesday Jan 28th 2025 (part 6)​

More lightstick pictures!

Heart! This did turn out cute


We're supposed to be Moana Wayfinders here... *shrugs*

From here we were just making our way to the front of the park, taking pictures along the way. Again, playing the odds - if we take enough pictures, I'll get some I like!


Tiny World! I like this one with Spaceship Earth all lit up


It's also fun trying to get the picture with Spaceship Earth all lit up in different ways - luck of the draw!

Hi there Figment!


Trying to get a picture with the sign...didn't quite work! LOL

But also, how pretty is Spaceship Earth:

One Little Spark! I literally just camped out on the planters to watch some of the shows:

And of course my favorite Rainbow Connection show:

We took a couple more pictures:


Green and Blue Spaceship Earth this time!

Honestly at this point we were just vibing and enjoying being there.

 

[Araminta18]

Everybody Wants to See Epcot at Night - Tuesday Jan 28th 2025 (part 7)​

Couple more pictures (#sorrynotsorry).

I love this rainbow lighting effect.

And to complete our set of photos at the front there, the fisheye lens!


Yay!

We then were heading back to the garden area (sorry I forgot the real name) to watch some of the shows from there cause the poles light up in time with the shows, but on the way we stopped at Guest Relations to ask about the dining package overcharge thing we had at Le Cellier. The CM was super nice and helpful - she offered to refund us the difference, or to give us two snack vouchers that we could use anywhere for anything listed as a "snack credit". We went with the vouchers, cause some of those snacks are expensive and we figured we'd come out ahead. She didn't really know what had happened - if the price had gone up or there was a mistake or what, but we were happy with our vouchers.

Then, Rainbow Connection again!

I didn't get the poles in the video but it was fun to watch it from back there. I just love that whole show.


I was trying to get the magic shot with Figment drawing a heart on the ground but the CM misunderstood. Oh well - Pua and Heihei are awesome.

Now, Guardians of the Galaxy!! We had our virtual queue that I'd gotten at lunch, and we like going later cause hopefully the wait is less. And it definitely was - we walked right into the first preshow room, with no wait at all. And as soon as we walked in, the doors opened to go into the second pre-show room. Nice! It also wasn't very crowded in that room, which helps Trevor's anxiety. Unfortunately, after going through the teleportation rom, that area was SUPER crowded - backed up all the way into that room where the teleportation room dumps you (where it funnels you back into a single-ish file line). That was a bummer, but it only took about 12 minutes before we were waiting for row 9. 30 minutes to get onto the ride, which isn't bad at all!


And what song did we get? Everybody Wants to Rule the World!! YAY!!!!!

Tea party for the photo.

They really should sell cake toast or something near Cosmic Rewind.

As we got off the ride, the fireworks were going off, which was neat. The grand finale ended up happening as we were walking up the bridge into World Showcase, which was pretty awesome.

But then it ended and turned into absolute chaos. Oops! Especially since we were mostly fighting our way upstream, back to the International Gateway.

Fire for Trevor! He's not a pyro at all. Not at all.

We were back in the room by 9:40 - love it man. Beach Club's proximity is amazing.

Tomorrow? the second "Check in day" for our split stay, so the plan was to do Blizzard Beach during the day and the Hollywood Studios After Hours that night. Woot!

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 17064 steps (6.5 miles)
Ride count: 1 (Guardians)
Annual Pass Savings: $43.50

 

[Araminta18]

Pretty Food - Wednesday January 29th, 2025 (part 1) ​

We slept in a little bit, just relaxing in the room. Today was technically our check out and check in day, but we were staying in the same room category and when we checked in on the first day, I asked if we could stay in the same room. I assumed we could, but figured I should probably go check. Especially when Housekeeping knocked on the door at 9. But the TV did say this so I figured we were probably fine:

Since you know you usually only see this on your check in day.

I ordered us some breakfast and headed down to the lobby. The CM at the front desk said we were all checked in and all good, so with that checked off the list, I grabbed our food and headed back to the room. Though I did get only one order of bacon and I ordered two....I just realized now I never asked them about it. Dangit! My $3, gone forever

Lovely view!

Breakfast was bacon and eggs (we're boring, basic people):


And cake!

This cake was their Millionaire cake - their take on a Millionaire shortbread, I think? The cake was really moist, especially for being 4 days old. The frosting was yummy too. I didn't like the caramel chunks but I don't really like caramel so that's more me than the cake, probably, especially cause Trevor liked the caramel cause it wasn't overwhelming.

That was our last cake, and overall, we were fans. They were definitely too expensive for what they were, but we ate almost all of them, as opposed to the Gideon's cakes which we almost never finish, cause they're so dense. These were lighter. Trevor's favorite was the raspberry champagne, because it was so light and refreshing. The cookie dough one would have been his favorite but it needed the cookie dough more incorporated, vs the slab of cookie dough between layers. So overall, we wouldn't buy 4 cake slices again but we'll probably buy one or two...cause it's Disney and the prices don't matter, right?

We were walking into Epcot a little before ten - there was a huge line for security if you had a stroller but if you didn't have a stroller, no line at all. Woohoo! The plan today was to walk through Epcot eating at food booths, up to the front of the park, where we would then hop on the bus to Animal Kingdom and then to Blizzard Beach. We had an hour or so til the food booths opened, so we wandered over to France. It said that the wait time for the Beauty and the Beast singalong was only 2 minutes, so why not!

But when we got in there we must have just missed it cause the CM said it was actually 15 minutes. So in the meantime, we decided to do the France DuckTales adventure! This one was fun - some interesting little interactive elements, like this one, where it finds a fingerprint on the books:


We took some clips of some of the other elements, including the high wire "finale".

Honestly, such a fun little thing - I'm glad we finally played some of the episodes. I love this type of stuff!

We finished the mission just in time to join the singalong! So definitely good timing.

A great show it is not, but it's fun. Especially if you like singing, which I definitely do.

Afterwards we were wandering a bit, just waiting for the booths to open. I did want to swing by the France booths and see if they'd restocked anything, and got lucky! They restocked the mini prints for both The Bride and the other piece I wanted from that same artist - the Beauty and the Beast print. I got super lucky - I had held off buying the Beauty and the Beast print cause they didn't have the mini print, and now I could get it! Woot!

But with that purchase, time for food booths! We went to Swirled Showcase, starting our lunch with dessert first, as you should. We got the Liquid Nitrogen Minnie cake pop with berry sponge cake, white chocolate ganache, and colorful chocolate splats:

The pop was fine, but you really get it more for the novelty of it, what with it being super cold and all. Fun!

Then, we got the Imagination Cone: Bubble gum soft-serve in a lavender cone, “sparks” of imagination, and white chocolate wings.

This was also another one you get for the look. I actually love bubblegum but man this was not good - it tipped over into pepto bismol taste. But it was super cute. Trevor ended up liking this, cause he's weird. He said it reminded him of amoxicillin when he was a kid.

 

[Araminta18]

Butterscotch and Dole Whips - Wednesday January 29th, 2025 (part 2) ​

I apparently didn't take any pictures but we also went and did the mural again, cause we were right there and with no line, why not?

Then, more food! We went to the Craftsman's Courtyard booth, to try the Beef Wellington. We always try this every year (well twice so far) and so far have been disappointed. But I'm a glutton for punishment so I figured we'd try again - Beef Wellington always sounds so good!

This was the Beef Wellington-inspired Croissant Supreme with creamed spinach croissant pinwheel, mushroom-gorgonzola ragout, mustard-grilled flank steak, red wine sauce, and pickled mustard seeds. This was so good! Warm and tender with a great flavor, and the croissant underneath - yum. Definitely the best iteration of the Beef Wellington we've had.

Then, over to the Fictional Victuals booth! This was apparently dishes based on Jules Verne and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which I didn't realize til we actually got there and saw the signs.


We ordered 3 of the items - first up, the Squid Ink Pasta with lump crab, truffle cream, and shaved truffle.

I'm dumb and didn't realize that the pasta had crab in it. Gross. But it did have shavings of parmesan cheese, which I like. And the bites without the crab were good - there was a surprising amount of crab for the price, and being a festival booth dish.

Then we got the Black Cocoa Brownie with ube ice cream, coral tuile, and sponge cake:

THis was so pretty! But otherwise kind of forgettable - it was fine, but not exciting. But so pretty to look at.

And finally the Butterscotch Milk Shake with Chocolate Garnish:

You may be wondering why we got the butterscotch milkshake when we don't like butterbeers, but I figured we should try it and see if we liked it better than the butterbeers. We did not. It ranks above the regular butterbeer but below the hot butterbeer.

We had a great view though while we were eating -

Monorail!!

There was a pair of women sitting next to us that were talking about drinking around the world and bachelorette parties, and not gonna lie I was listening in - they were funny. One of them said that she only does bachelorette parties at Epcot when she's in charge, because she has rules: they have to get water with every second drink etc. Smart! Made me laugh for sure.


You can never have too many pictures of the monorail, especially with Spaceship Earth right there.

Trevor said that both the bubblegum ice cream and the butterscotch milkshake had very lasting flavors, with the aftertaste sticking around. Bubble gum mixed with butterscotch is apparently quite a weird taste mixture. So for next year, maybe keep that in mind.

We decided to make one last stop before heading to the water park: back to Swirled Showcase to get the Candy Trio Flight: DOLE Whip Strawberry with STARBURST MINIS fruit chews, DOLE Whip Lemon with SKITTLES POP’d Freeze Dried Candy, and DOLE Whip Lime with chili-lime seasoning and LIFE SAVERS gummies.

We were on the fence before but decided it would be fun to eat on our way out of the park, trying the different flavors with the different candies. As we started trying it, I feel like the candy was too strong - it overwhelms the lighter flavor of the dole whip. Still delicious though. I liked the strawberry the best. The lime with the tajin was odd but I've only had tajin a couple times. The starbursts and the lifesavers got all cold and hard. We also tried mixing the flavors together - strawberry lemon was Trevor's favorite, but strawberry and lime was my favorite. Lemon lime together was just sour. This dish was both fun and delicious - so glad we got it!

Trevor also got a red cream soda there, cause he loves red cream soda and this is like the only place that has it.

Forgive him for the Hufflepuff spirit jersey! At Disney! Shame.

We also redeemed our Wonderful Walk of Colorful Cuisine for the completer treat. We had two booklets cause we forgot the book one day, and so we had 4 stamps in one book and 2 in the other. We showed the CM that we had 5 total, and she gave us two of the completer treats! That was nice of her. The treats were frosted rice krispies with Figment on them, so #winning.

Ok, full from all the food, we made our way to the front of the park to catch the bus to Animal Kingdom, with a quick detour to get sunscreen at the gift shop, cause we hadn't brought sunscreen with us. Oops! But we had good timing - we saw the AK bus right as we walked out of Epcot, so we jogged over there and made it on. Yay! And then at Animal Kingdom, there was a Blizzard Beach bus waiting as we arrived. But we had to go a ways around the bus bays, and it left before we got there. But because it's a long walk, there was a new one that pulled up right as we got to the Blizzard Beach bay. Woohoo!

I was hoping we'd be the only ones on the bus, but people kept getting on. I suppose we weren't the only one with the idea to go to the water park. But a little after 1, we pulled away!

 

[Araminta18]

All the Slides! - Wednesday January 29th, 2025 (part 3)​

We arrived at Blizzard Beach at 1:10:

So a bit less than four hours, with a goal to do the entire park!


The only time I'd been here was when I was given a complimentary pass to buy a spirit jersey they had in stock at the gift shop and nowhere else, so I was excited to see the park.

The theming was super cute:

Look at these adorable little melting snowmen family!

There weren't very many people around, but the board said the wait times were all 15 minutes. So we headed into the dressing rooms to change and see for ourselves!

We had to leave our phones in our lockers, so I don't have any pictures of the rides or anything, but suffice it to say, the rides were not 15 minute waits! The crowds were really really low, and we were able to do everything, without feeling rushed or anything. The theme of Blizzard Beach is just that - there was a freak blizzard, and so they quickly put up ski resort infrastructure, only to have it all melt away. All the big slides are high up at the top of the chairlift, so we started there. We rode the chairlift up to the top, and started by riding the biggest slide they have: Summit Plummet! It's a tall body slide - took me a minute to get my courage up but hey no line so no pressure. It was really fun - it felt like a vertical drop! The only thing I don't like about the tall body slides is the ginormous wedgie I get from the water.

The nice thing about no lines is that it includes the chairlift, so we just hopped back on the lift up to the top and rode the next big body slide: Slusher Gusher. This one has a couple hills, and you actually get some air! It's fun but a little frightening - I liked it better than Summit Plummet.

Next we rode the chairlift up again and rode the family raft ride! We didn't think we'd be able to cause it said you needed to have 4 people, but they let us go by ourselves. Course with only two people we didn't really spin that much, but we had fun. It let us out near the lazy river, so we hopped in there and rode that around a bit to the next slide area - the red slides at Runoff Rapids. No chairlift here! Well, we could have gotten to these slides by taking the chairlift up but it lets off completely opposite from the chairlifts so we just did the stairs. (I hate stairs). We rode all three of them - they're just single tube slides, but fun!

After riding all three, we walked around to the Purple Slopes, with their three slides. We did the Downhill Double Dipper first, which is a tube slide but you race - they even have a timer above each slide so you can see who had the best time! Spoiler alert: me. Then we did the Toboggan Racers, which is a straight mat slide, with several lanes side by side. I also won this one, but I think my weight helped me there. And since these let out near the chair lift, we rode the chair lift up to the top and walked to the last slide: Snow Stormers. This was another mat slide, but with curves - that was really fun too, though I did get a lot of water up my nose, which is not my favorite.

We then spent some time in the wave pool, the water was nice and warm and it was not crowded at all. We had tons of space, and the waves were awesome. I feel like sometimes in wave pools the waves aren't big enough to be any fun, but these were good, big waves. We got out though to ride the lazy river - had to do a complete circuit! The lazy river was nice and just fast enough to not be boring. I approve.

We got out of the lazy river near the chairlift again, and rode the chairlift up to ride Slusher Gusher again - the body slide with the hills. Had to get some more air on that slide! Then, we rode the chairlift up one more time and went over to ride the Snow Stormers slide again (the mat slide that had curves). As we rode that one, Trevor hit his head when he raised it up at the wrong time, and got a bit of a cut on his head. So...with it being about 3:45, we figured that was probably good for the day. Trevor went to First Aid and got (as the CM said) the "tiniest band aid on property" and some ibuprofen, and then we got changed and ready to head back to the room.



It was a great day - just slightly on the cool side, no crowds, we rode all the rides...it was great. We'll probably never have as good a day at a waterpark as ever again! As Disney perks go, this one isn't bad. I'd rather have the Magical Express and such, but this one isn't bad.

We did look around in the gift shop a bit - had to buy a magnet - and I realized they were playing Christmas music, but like, Jamaican steel drum style? I approve. Also I have to share: I have several claw clips for my hair (including one that looks like Sleeping Beauty's crown) but I don't wear them super often 'cause my hair falls out of it. BUT! I found a youtube tutorial on how to use it that claimed your hair wouldn't come out, and I tried it and by golly it works! I had my hair in that clip all day (well, not while we were in the water, but at Epcot) and my hair stayed put! Yay!

There was a bus waiting to take us back to Animal Kingdom, so we hopped on. The plan was to go back to the room, get showered and changed, get dinner at the new corn dog place at the Boardwalk, and then head over to Hollywood Studios for Hollywood Studios After Hours.

We had a bit less luck at the Animal Kingdom bus stop - we saw the bus at the Beach Club bay when we arrived on the bus from Blizzard Beach, but it pulled away pretty immediately. And then we wait 20 minutes for the next Beach Club bus to pull up. Sadness. At least we got to see all the bus wraps while we waited?

I do like the Cinderella wrap.

We ended up not being back to the Beach Club by 5:20. So since we were a bit later than we planned, Trevor went over to get the corn dogs to go, and I went to the room to take a shower and start packing up since we actually did have to switch rooms the next day.

At the corn dog place, there was a bit of a line (poor Trevor), so it ended up being 5:50 before Trevor was back in the room. But he brought food that smelled delicious!

So the top one is the Mexican Street Dog: Jalapeño Cheddar Sausage, fried in Cornmeal Batter. Topped with Garlic Mayo, Corn Kernels, Cotija Cheese, and Cilantro. Trevor wanted this one - he said it was good and he liked the jalapeno cheddar in the sausage. I didn't love it cause of how wet it was, but it smelled good. The one on the bottom is the Golden Dragon: All-Beef Hot Dog, fried in Cornmeal Batter, rolled in Panko Bread Crumbs. Served with Sriracha Mayo, and Sweet Thai Chili. I ordered this one, and it was SO GOOD. I loved how crispy it was - super crispy and fresh. And I kept going back and forth on which dip was better - initially i liked the sriracha mayo better but the more I tried the duck sauce the more I liked it.

And then finally, the regular corn dog.

We got two cause they burned the first one? This was also delicious - even the burned one wasn't nearly as burned as the ones I had in Disneyland. Overall, Blue Ribbon Corn Dog was delicious and I can't wait to go back. I'm still thinking of that Golden Dragon corn dog. Yum.

After eating dinner and resting for a bit, we left to head to Hollywood Studios at 7:30. As we walked down to the Friendship boats, we passed the movie on the lawn - they were showing the Jungle Book, and it was right at part where they were singing "I wanna be like you", so I caught Trevor dancing a bit. He's so cute.

We took the boat over:

I was checking wait times while we were on our way, and Rise was showing a 20 minute wait! I figured that probably wouldn't stay that low, but if it did, we knew where we were heading first - right back to Galaxy's Edge and Rise. We were crossing our fingers it stayed that low!

 

[Araminta18]

Single Rider Line on Rise - Wednesday January 29th, 2025 (part 4)​

We checked in at Hollywood Studios at exactly 8 o'clock - no line!


Studios is pretty at night.

Rise was still showing a short wait so we headed back there and we saw the single rider was open! So we decided to try it, and see what single rider there looks like and see how it goes.

There was no wait, which was nice. We got up to the bit with the transport, and instead of getting on the transport, after they loaded up the guests, they took us across and down the hallway (the hallways they have you use when the transport is down):

And we just hung out at the end of the hallway, looking into the hangar bay:

We basically walked right on up to this point, which was neat. We did wait here for a bit - 3 minutes. It felt a bit longer than that just cause we were excited! We did have fun talking with the CMs - they were messing with Trevor 'cause his spirit jersey said "Rebel Leader":

They were like "Dude, why didn't you wear something different, or turn it inside out? You're literally on a First Order ship". We tried to go with it - I think we came up with he used to be a rebel but then retired and now he has no money for new clothes - which doesn't address the "turn it inside out" suggestion...basically we're not improvisers! LOL

We were having a bit too much fun...

This is Trevor humoring me a bit, but also loving being by the stormtroopers.

We did get into the same cell group, though we were on different colors:

I didn't realize Trevor took this picture til I was sorting pics. That's me in the back right there - see, Trevor also takes crazy pictures!

Trevor got the track where the AT-AT head faces you, while I got the side track:

The cannons weren't working though, Trevor says - see how they're still in the "up" position, vs down pointing at you. The probe droid at the beginning also didn't come down. But Kylo Ren was working, so that was good.

Trevor took some video clips too:

We were in our transport at 8:21, 11 minutes after entering the line. And we were off the ride by 8:27 - a total of 17 minutes of line + ride. Which is kind of amazing, actually. If you've ridden Rise before so you've gotten the whole experience with the preshow, single rider is absolutely the way to go! You can't beat that time. We were absolutely ready to do it again via single rider, but they'd closed the single rider line. Womp womp.

It was still posting 20 minutes so we decided to just do the regular line.

 

[Araminta18]

How Many Times Can We Ride Rise in Less Than an Hour? - Wednesday January 29th, 2025 (part 5)​

This was 3 minutes into the line.

And 5 minutes after that, we were in this room - a total wait of 8 minutes!


The nice thing about not doing single rider is that we did get to ride together:

21 minutes to get on our transport. Not too bad! Worse than single rider, but still not bad at all.

We got off at 8:53, and wanted to go back around for a third time (cause when do you ever get to do three rides on Rise in less than an hour!), but the wait time was 45 minutes. We couldn't see the line though, so we decided to get in line and see where the line ended - we were hoping (I was hoping ) they were just inflating the wait time and it wouldn't actually be that long.

It was a bit of a longer wait than before, but still only 12 minutes to hit the preshow room with Rey. Yay for wait time inflation! We were off by 9:22 - 24 minutes to get on our transport, and a total of 29 minutes. Yay!

Three rides on Rise - we were riding high! We decided to head over to the Falcon and knock that out, and while I don't remember what the wait time was (and I didn't take note apparently), 5 minutes in we were seeing Hondo.

Then in the lounge area (the room with the chess board) they didn't let us wait at all, just had us get right on! We did ask to be pilots

I always let Trevor be the one who pulls the lever to go to lightspeed when we get to be pilots.

We did...ok? I ran us into a LOT of spires, but we did get 2 coaxiums so...on balance it was good? I guess?


Always gotta take a selfie with the Falcon.

The event had just started at 9:30 and it was about 9:40, so we wanted to use our snack voucher from Epcot the day before to get the blue milk with the nerds and jelly, cause that is our absolute favorite way to drink blue milk. The sugar is exactly what it needs! And since this is like $10, it's a good use of our voucher.

The CMs there hadn't seen the voucher before so it took a few minutes while they all figured out how to ring it up, but we were just happy to be there. Galaxy's Edge was basically deserted!

See? Well I guess you can't really see, but there was like no one there.

Drink acquired, we headed to Toy Story Land! They had several food carts out, so we grabbed some snacks:

And headed in line for Slinky Dog! It was posting 15 minutes...we'll see how much it actually was.

 

[Araminta18]

Toy Story Land - Wednesday January 29th, 2025 (part 6)​

This was the line as we entered:

And exactly 15 minutes later we were here:

Not bad - I'll wait 15 minutes for Slinky. And it did give us time to eat our ice cream.

Drinking tea!

I do enjoy the finale.

After Slinky, we decided to get on Alien Swirling Sacuers, cause why not! But first, more ice cream.

Honestly props to the operations folks - there were 3 HUGE carts for snacks in Toy Story Land, all close to each other and no wait at all. A+

As we got in line for Swirling Saucers, I heard the giant Buzz say something that I'd never heard before - he said that he was Buzz and if any of us saw Jesse we needed to tell her that Buzz Lightyear said "uh uh uh uh...Greetings!" It was hilarious - love that bit of Buzz having a huge crush on Jesse and getting all nervous about her.

5 minutes later we were on Alien Swirling Saucers! We went for separate cars so we'd slide around a bit more.

Trevor taking a picture of me taking a picture of him.

He just waved at me

Having ridden two of the three rides in Toy Story Land, next up we wanted to ride Midway Mania! So we started heading that way, though I inadvertently startled myself when I walked through an applause square:

Then, when we were close to Midway Mania, we saw Bo Peep out! We got in line cause it was pretty short, maybe 4 or 5 groups in front of us, and the CMs said that we would be the last ones before they cut off her line, but a few minutes later they came back and were like "nope sorry, the group in front of you is the last group". Which was slightly irritating - it ended up being a 10 minute wait, but 5 minutes of that was before they cut the line off in front of us and at that point... *shrugs* It was fun to meet her though!

Then, time for Toy Story Mania! It was posting 15 minutes which seemed a bit high, and then when we got in line, the line was backed up to here:

And it was not moving AT ALL. So after about a minute or so we bailed. We figured it must have gone down or something. So we hopped out and went to Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway instead! 10 minutes later (aka, 10 minutes after being in the middle of the Midway Mania line), we were here!

Love lines like this - basically walk on into the pre-show and then right here! We were having a great night (aside from Midway Mania being down and having to wait slightly longer than I wanted for Bo Peep ).

 

[DVCjj]

LOVE your Trip Reports always and look forward to each one. Such wonderful details! Especially love what an adorable couple you are. Obviously, a very happy marriage.

 

[Araminta18]

Character Time Out - Wednesday January 29th, 2025 (part 7)​

We got our own row on Runaway Railway, which was nice.

We had a fun ride, though we did get stopped in the final room - with the carousel. Like, the voice came on saying our ride had momentarily stopped. But honestly that was a good place to get stopped; I just enjoyed listening to "Nothing Can Stop Us Now". And it was only stopped for 2 or 3 minutes - not long.

We were off by 10:55, and decided to head back towards Star Tours. But on the way, we saw Mary Poppins out meeting! And it's me, so obviously we stopped. Well, only obviously 'cause it was like a 2 minute wait. Like literally I have a picture of us walking by ABC commissary and then 2 minutes later, this pic of me with Mary Poppins:

Hi Trevor's shadow!

I asked Mary where Bert was and she was telling me he was with the penguin and something about tap dancing - she said even the penguin could tap dance!
Then right as we finished meeting them, I saw Bert and a penguin coming out, and the CM said they were gonna swap with Mary. I wanted to stay and meet them, though the line was slightly longer than before. Trevor was not interested, so he went off to ride Star Tours instead.

It was a 4 minute wait to meet Bert and the penguin:

I was showing the penguin my bow, because Bert said that they had bow ties but I had a bow tie in my hair! I also asked them about tap dancing, cause Mary said they both could dance, so they did a couple steps for me.

A fun, cute little meet and greet.

Obviously Trevor was still in Star Tours, and one of the other folks in line said that Thumper was out meeting by Echo Lake, so I decided to run over there and meet with him a little bit. The line was short too - only about 3 minutes to meet him!

I'd never seen Thumper out before, so it was fun to meet him.

Thumper had been bribed with carrots to come out and meet us.


I finished up and went back towards Star Tours and ran into Trevor right as he came out of the gift shop - good timing! Trevor was not the rebel spy, sadly but most noteworthily: he did not get Naboo! Yay!

It was about 11:10, so with a little less than 90 minutes left, we decided to go down Sunset Boulevard and ride Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller Coaster. I know you'll be shocked though that I saw a photographer and made us stop.

Photo acquired, we also got some ice cream.

 

[Araminta18]

The Terrifying Part of the Night - Wednesday January 29th, 2025 (part 8)​

Heading down Sunset Boulevard, we had to stop for pics in front of the Tower of Terror. And yes, "had to" - its the law. Especially when I was wearing the Tower of Terror spirit jersey!



They all turned out pretty good too!

We actually decided to go for Rockin Roller Coaster first, cause it said 30 minutes.

This is where the line was backed up to - that's the entrance door up ahead there. But despite the line, 9 minutes later we were getting on - phew!

I noticed this sign across the way - to "lock and roll" your car.

We asked for the last row. Cause why not.

No pose here - just pure terror! I do like how the folks in front are just calm/sleeping.

When we got off the ride, Tower of Terror was posting a 13 minute wait!

I do love these fun wait times when the rides are walkons. It was a walkon into the library, and then 5 minutes later we were on the ride!

Sleeping!

When we got off, we kind of held back a little bit and asked the CM if we could re-ride, and she said yes! She took us back up the real elevator and we got to get right back on.

Yay!

 

[Araminta18]

Will We Make It On Midway Mania?! - Wednesday January 29th, 2025 (part 9)​

This was a much more energetic elevator.

The group in front of us was doing YMCA, but went out of their way to make sure they didn't block us, which was super nice of them. We were drinking tea.

We got off at 12:03, and so with 27 minutes left, we ran back to Toy Story Land - we wanted (well I ) wanted to ride Toy Story Mania! Couldn't leave it unridden. On our way back, we passed Jiminy Cricket out there meeting and greeting.

We got back there only to find that Midway Mania was down! Sadness. We decided to pivot and ride Slinky, and hope that by the time we got off Slinky Midway Mania would be back up and running. We weren't super confident in that, cause it was pretty close to the end of the night, but hope springs eternal! And meanwhile, Slinky was super short:

6 minutes, and we were on!

As we were riding, I saw people going into the Midway Mania line so I was like TREVOR IT'S UP! We pretended to be much less excited than we were:

sleepy!

And then we ran over to Midway Mania, getting in the line at 12:23. As we were walking over there was a CM on the bridge thing there holding a box of ice cream and just handing it to folks, so of course we took one.

We got on at 12:27:

We did pretty good!

I got 188,100, and Trevor got 159,600 - we were definitely trying to work together to trigger some of the higher point things, like getting the robot mouth and such. And best part?

Best in vehicle!!!

It was 12:32 when we got off and I was thinking maaaaybe they'd let us ride again? And then when we were waiting to get off, I heard one of the CMs tell the other that they were going to stay open a few minutes late because they'd had down time earlier, so as we got off I asked if we could re-ride and they said yes! They nicely just sent us back to the boarding area:

They were waiting for the line on the left there to clear out, and then they'd let us and the few other people board.

Also, I've never noticed this before (or if I have, I've forgotten) - it's one of those little writing pads with the static cling topsheet toys! I have no idea what they're called but I used to love that when I was a kid!

(argh picture limit - only one more post I promise!)

 

[Araminta18]

Good Night Hollywood! - Wednesday January 29th, 2025 (part 10)​

One more theming picture -

It's the closet!

It was 12:38 when we got on. We felt like we did worse this time, but....

we both did better! Trevor improved by like 30k points, while I only improved by like 3k points. But still, awesome scores!

Poor Trevor, I edged him out - just barely.

So it was 12:45 when we got off - 15 minutes past the end of the event.

We slowly made our way to the front of the park:

one last selfie!

Overall, we had a great time - this "felt" like a better event than Magic Kingdom, but that may have been expectations. But it felt like fewer people were in the walkways, and the snack coverage (especially in Toy Story Land) was waaaaaaay better. No waiting in lines for snacks! The ride lines were a bit longer but that makes sense with fewer rides. And we felt like we timed most things pretty well. Course it also helped that we weren't trying to ride Rise during the event, since we rode it (3 TIMES! ) before the event started. So yea, I'd do this one again.

We got to the boat dock right at 1 am.

Late night Disney Ducks!

The boat arrived just as we did, which was nice. And we got our favorite boat spot, out back in the fresh air.

Our snack haul - a box and a half of popcorn and I think 2 drinks. LOL. Not as many this time but that's ok.

Pretty Boardwalk!

The only downside is that the boat lets us off further from our room than Epcot is far from our room, so it felt like a "long" walk. We got so spoiled!

Overall, a busy exhausting day, but a FUN exhausting day - a wonderful Disney day.

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 23,031 steps (8.9 miles) - this is a bit of lie, cause it doesn't include any of the steps from Blizzard Beach (cause I didn't have my phone on me)
Ride count: 33 for me, 34 for Trevor (Beauty and the Beast singalong, Chairlift x6 , Summit Plummet, Slusher Gusher x2, Downhill Double Dipper, Runoff Rapids x3, Snow Stormers x2, Teamboat Springs, Toboggan Racers, Meltaway Bay wave pool, Cross Country Creek lazy river, Rise x3, Smuggler's Run, Slinky x2, Alien Swirling Saucers, Runaway Railway, Rockin Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror x2, Midway Mania x2; Trevor also rode Star Tours)
Annual Pass Savings: $18.40

 

[Araminta18]

LOVE your Trip Reports always and look forward to each one. Such wonderful details! Especially love what an adorable couple you are. Obviously, a very happy marriage.

Aw thank you for reading! I really appreciate it. And for the compliment - we are indeed very happy

 

[rdkeim]

What an awesome day! You sure made the most of your time. Is it my imagination or did you change shirts?

 

[NSDisneyGirl]

Hi I don't comment much but just wanted to let you know I've followed along on your trip reports for years and always enjoy reading them! Thanks for bringing extra Disney cheer into my everyday life!

 

[Araminta18]

What an awesome day! You sure made the most of your time. Is it my imagination or did you change shirts?

nope, you're spot on! We put on spirit jerseys for the night, cause we thought it may be cold. the last picture is me having taken off the spirit jersey cause I was too hot!