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Old 18 Apr 20, 11:13 AM  
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Talking 5-week Split Stay in Florida, Feb/March 2020 - Day 15: Magical Express, Saratoga Springs, & Epcot!

Day 15: Magical Express, Checking into Saratoga Springs, & Epcot!
February 24, 2020

[-- Trip Index --]

Today was the start of the Disney part of our trip! I woke up way too early just after 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep from excitement haha, I swear I'm just a big kid! I read on my phone for a while until Michael brought me coffee at 6:45, and got up soon after that. Myla was awake around 7, and had her breakfast while I packed away the last bits and pieces. We all got dressed - she was very excited to see her Frozen dress, and I asked her, "Guess who we're going to see today, then?" and she said, "ANNA AND ELSA? REALLY? " She was jumping up and down with excitement haha.


It was still a bit cool this morning, so I layered her and me up with leggings and our jean jackets - luckily it was due to heat up to around 25C by the afternoon.


When it was time to leave, we said BYE to our lovely villa, and Myla started crying. She said she didn't want to go anywhere else after all and wanted to stay here in our "big big holiday home". Oh dear! Michael and I explained to her that we HAD to go if she wanted to go see Anna and Elsa, and we might find more characters today, AND in our new hotel room tonight, she'd get the super special treat of sleeping in the same room as mommy and daddy! That calmed her down a bit, and gave her something fun to look forward to.

With one last wave goodbye, we were out the door by 8:10, eager to make the most of our first park day!

Bye Windsor Hills! Thank you for another fantastic stay!


We stopped at Walmart for petrol and headed to the airport to drop off our rental car - we wouldn't need it in Disney as we prefer to use Disney transport. Myla spent the half-hour car journey playing on the iPad.


So I know we could potentially have taken the car to the Car Care Center in WDW too, and save the drive to and from the airport. But when I booked all this originally, we had decided to only rent the stroller for the 3 weeks at Disney, not the 2 weeks at the villa as the cost for a 5-week rental was coming up to $300 originally! So I'd then figured it'd be easiest to drop the car off and pick up the stroller at the same time. When I actually went to book the stroller later on (I only booked this a few weeks before we left, in January), Kingdom Strollers actually gave me a really good deal for a 5-week rental, for only $25 more than the 3 weeks! So we didn't technically need to go to the airport for the stroller anymore, but I didn't bother changing the car drop-off since it would cost a little more, and we decided to just stick to our original plan. It felt like a good way to start the trip, with the Magical Express like we normally would!

Near the airport we actually found a Magical Express bus, and basically followed that to the terminal lol.


A very nice man loaded all our luggage (3 suitcases, 3 backpacks, and a huge plastic grocery bag) onto a cart and took it all to the Magical Express check-in desk for us for $10. Bargain, as that was much easier than Michael wrestling all the bags while I had Myla and the stroller lol. He actually asked which airline we were flying with, and I felt really cheeky saying actually we weren't flying yet, we were going to the Magical Express!


We were at the ME desk for 9:15, and scanned our Magic Bands (from last year's trip) to check in. We were directed to queue number 4, and although it looked busy, it wasn't bad at all and we were on our ME bus by 9:30!

Excitement!

The drive itself was fine - Myla watched the cartoons and we were all just so happy to be on the way to Disney!


Bye airport! See you in 3 weeks haha!

We stopped at Old Key West to let people off first, and were at Saratoga Springs for 10:15.



Someone from Bell Services came over right away to help us with our luggage, he basically took it from the curb side for us and gave us the collection note - so quick and easy! I'd done online check-in, so technically we could have been on our merry way now. However, last year on our last trip, Myla was still 2, and had no ticket and therefore no magic band. This year she's 3, so she had a ticket, and we had to collect her magic band from the front desk otherwise she couldn't enter the park! So we headed into the Carriage House and joined the short queue.


A CM came right over to us to ask what we needed help with, and when I explained we just needed the magic bands, she told us no need to queue, go take a seat and I'll find them for you! Michael and Myla had some fun in the big chairs in the lobby while we waited.


She came back with our bands after a few minutes - I forgot to take a picture of it at the time, but we got these special ones:

Tinker Bell is Myla's, Star Wars is Michael's, and Dole Whip is mine. Michael and I swapped our old ones for the new ones too, and Myla proudly put her own band on. She remembered this from last year - she constantly wanted to scan her own band last year when she didn't have one so was happy to have her own now. That said, she actually wore it herself for about 3 minutes, then gave it to me and didn't wore it AT ALL anymore the whole rest of the trip. I therefore wore mine on my left wrist and hers on my right wrist - she just came and got it off me any time she wanted to scan in for her own FP. She said she didn't like wearing it herself, as the band hurt? Oh well - her arms are still pretty small, maybe it'll be more comfy next time!

We decided to grab a quick snack to keep us going before heading to the parks, and headed into Artist's Palette. I got a pain du chocolat, Myla got a croissant, and Michael got the vegan Harvest Breakfast Sandwich, which was very nice and filling! I ate some of his potatos, they were yum and very well seasoned.


By 11 we headed to the bus stop. We were going to Epcot today - this is becoming a bit of a tradition, it's our favorite park and today was also the last day of the Festival Of The Arts, so we were eager to catch a little bit of that.


And guess which bus was sitting there waiting for us? It definitely was our lucky morning - everything went really smooth, and we were actually at Epcot for 11:25, a full hour earlier than I had thought we'd be there!


We made our way to the entrance past all the scaffolding and building work. Can't wait to see how amazing it'll be when it's all finished!


At the entrance, I scanned my finger for Myla's band, as I figured that'd be easier than getting her to do it every time we were going into a park. And at 11:35, we were in Epcot, yay!


Because we were a bit earlier than planned, our first Fast Pass for Spaceship Earth didn't open for another 40 minutes. However, we spotted Goofy and Pluto meeting under the breezeway, much to Myla’s delight. Goofy was up first, and she started waving at him while we were in the queue, all ready with her autograph book at the right page! This is a special autograph book that I made for her myself - I did some research and included a page for every single character meet 'n greet in WDW (not counting meals), and we had the goal of trying to do them all! Each character had their own page, and now that we're back home, the book is SUCH a fun keepsake, she browses through it every single day. Spoiler alert: we came VERY close to doing all 83 character meets! The only pages we missed were: Bo Peep (she stopped meeting like, 2 days before we came, quite unexpectedly!), Green Army Men (we seemed to only see the marching band ones, not the ones that signed), and Chip 'n Dale at the front of Hollywood Studios - it was very busy there the few times we saw them, and then the day we were supposed to go back and get this last autograph, we changed our minds on going to the parks due to the coronavirus - this was literally the day before WDW closed indefinitely!

We only queued for maybe 7 or 8 minutes for this.

Edited at 11:43 AM.
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Old 18 Apr 20, 11:13 AM  
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I combined all the little videos from our meets of today into one longer video, I've included it at the bottom of my post here! Goofy was lovely and Myla was so happy to meet him! He made a big fuss of her book and having his own page in there, and the CMs were very impressed too lol.

Next we walked down to Pluto.


This was a short queue too, not even 5 minutes.



Now it was time for our Spaceship Earth fast pass. But when we walked up, we found out the ride had been down earlier that morning, and the FP queue was completely full, spilling out all over the path towards the back! As our window had only just opened and we still had a full hour to ride it, we decided to go and do something else for a little bit first, and come back in half an hour to see if it was any better.

We walked past Spaceship Earth and headed towards Mission Space, checking out the progress on the new Guardians Of The Galaxy rollercoaster on the way. Myla loved all the posters on the walls!

She looooves Big Hero 6, such a shame Baymax stopped meeting shortly before we were there. She would have absolutely loved meeting him!


Some living statues!


We made our way to Mission Space and went into the exit to find the play area. Both Michael and I are a bit sensitive to simulator rides, so this is as close as we'll ever get to the Mission Space ride!


The play area isn't huge, but it's big enough to spend a little time in there. There's one set of tubes meant for 3-5 year olds, and the higher set of tubes meant for 5-12 year olds, it says this on the little signs next to the entrance. Of course plenty of older kids were going into the toddler tubes too, so Myla got a bit overwhelmed in there with older kids pushing past - she'd probably enjoy that bit more if it was quieter!


There was plenty to see and do outside the tubes you can crawl through too.


She played here for a good 20 minutes, and then did the Launch game thing (I forget what it's called!) with Michael.


If you have a kid who likes space and/or video games, this is definitely an area worth visiting and spending some time in!

We now walked back to Spaceship Earth to hopefully use our Fastpass. It was lovely in the sun, nice and pleasant without being very hot.


Yay, the queue had died down and we were able to walk almost straight on.


Myla sat on my lap and squeezed my hand a few times - she wasn't a fan of the darker bits but loved the animation on our screens at the end, and concluded she DID like it and would ride it again lol!

Edited at 11:27 AM.
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Old 18 Apr 20, 11:14 AM  
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We made our way towards World Showcase next, checking out some of the art installations on the way. Epcot was looking so colorful and pretty!

I wanted to paint a bit of the wall, but it was very busy here - actually, it was busy everywhere now! I think more people had the idea of visiting on the last day of the Festival.



We stopped for a Fine Arts photopass picture - Myla was busy eating Goldfish in the stroller and absolutely did not want to be disturbed.




Some of the chalk art was amazing, really cool to walk past!


We stood and watched a little show here at the top of World Showcase, it was a couple doing an acrobatic type of dancing, with lots of gymnastic style tricks - really cool and well done!



As we passed by the Gazebo, Myla noticed Minnie was meeting there and immediately asked to join the queue - that was fine by us, we weren't in a rush!

The queue was only around 10 minutes, and Minnie was so sweet and made a big fuss of Myla's sunglasses!


The temperature had heated up rightly by now, so I stopped by the toilets to take off my leggings, and then we continued our way to Norway.


Our FP window was open, so we searched for a spot for the stroller, and headed straight for the ride.


It turned out this was the one and only time we rode it this trip. The bit with Marshmellow and the drop really did scare Myla, and she refused to ride it every other time!



After a quick browse in the store, we were intending to head for the Anna and Elsa meet 'n greet. Myla was getting tired now, so we debated trying to get her to nap by walking around with her in the stroller. But she absolutely insisted she wanted to see Anna and Elsa now and wasn't tired at all. So we joined the 35 minute queue.

Edited at 11:28 AM.
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Old 18 Apr 20, 11:15 AM  
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And what do you know, 5 minutes into the queue and without our stroller, she plain passes out haha!



A 3-year-old is heavier than you think when she's fast asleep! We took turns carrying her and just prayed she'd wake up in time so we didn't queue for nothing! The queue actually only took about 20 minutes, and the CMs who saw Myla was fast asleep, were all laughing. They helped me wake her up gently with some stickers, and by then it was pretty much our turn - Myla was wide awake in an instant when she realized this!


Elsa was SUPER sweet and really pretty, chatting to Myla and just plain awesome!


Anna was the same, just so lovely and perky! Myla went all starstruck and I don't think she said 2 words to them, but she absolutely LOVED it!

I personally am still getting used to their new outfits, I think I preferred the old ones. We'd watched Frozen 2 in preparation for this though, and I don't think Myla noticed - she didn't mention it anyhow!

In the giftshop she spotted the Olaf we bought here last year - she left him at home this time, but asked me to take a photo with this one anyhow lol:

And of course she had to cuddle Sven too:


Just as we were leaving here, around 14:45, I got the text to say our room at Saratoga was ready! Perfect timing! I immediately went to check what room we'd been assigned, and was a bit worried to see it wasn't in the Paddock, where I'd requested!

I looked up on the little map where the Grandstand was, and was disappointed to see it was further away from Disney Springs. But when I did a quick Dibb search on my phone to see what people thought of this area, I actually found lot of people LOVE this area and specifically request it, and that it's the first pickup and first dropoff! So that made me feel a bit better, and I was curious to check out our room.

We decided to slowly make our way towards the busses and get a late lunch at Sunshine Seasons on the way, as well as ride our third Fastpass of the day, Nemo. We slowly walked back, soaking up the atmosphere and sunshine.


I wanted to stop for a butterfly picture, but it was very busy here and we were hungry!

We parked the stroller up by the Land Pavilion and headed in.


Michael and I both ordered the vegan chicken Korma with rice, and an M&M cookie for Myla, with free ice waters. $22 in total! Our meals were lovely, really tasty and we both very much enjoyed them!


Stealing daddy's sunglasses!

Such sweet memories of our meal on New Year's Eve there last year!

Now it was time for our last FP, The Seas With Nemo! Myla loves the Nemo and Dory movies, and she LOVED this ride last year - she was very excited to ride it again this year.



She loved it this time too, and we ended up riding it another fair few times this trip lol. We didn't stay to look in the aquariums - we'd already had so much aquarium time in SeaWorld, and since it had warmed up now, Myla was eager to check out the swimming pool in our new hotel! So we headed for the bus stop.


We got off at the first stop, The Grandstand, and checked the map to try and find our room. It was in the first building on your left as you came off the bus, ground floor so SUPER handy with the stroller!

Edited at 11:29 AM.
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Old 18 Apr 20, 11:15 AM  
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I absolutely loved the location of our room once I realized where it was. It was only 2 minutes to the bus stop, the pool was like, 2 minutes in the opposite direction, and we could see the lobby building across the golf course, it looked very close too! The room was lovely, nice and bright and very clean.


I rang bell services as soon as we got in, and they brought our luggage around 20 minutes later. Michael then took Myla for a swim in the pool, while I unpacked for the next 4 nights, and did my work for the day on the laptop.

They came back around 17:30, Myla absolutely freezing but they'd had a good time - the pool was fun and they basically had it to themselves as there was no one else there! I gave Myla a bath and we got the sofa bed ready for her. After her bath, with Myla already in her pajamas, we decided to walk to Artist's Palette to get our refillable mugs so we could get coffee in the morning. As we were standing in front of the map by the Grandstand pool, lighting it with my phone torch and trying to find the walking path, a very nice slightly older American couple passed us and asked where we were going. I explained I was looking for Artist's Palette and that this was our first night here, and she said, "Oh that's where we're going, follow us!" So we walked with them, it really only is 5-6 minutes! They were very nice - DVC owners here at SSP for 25+ years and they come here every single year. #lifegoals lol!

Once at the QS, we bought our mugs, and I picked up a yogurt. I wasn't hungry for dinner after our late lunch - neither was Michael, he just tucked into the container of nuts we'd bought at Target yesterday, and the yogurt was enough for me. I can't remember what Myla had - probably a banana and maybe a bowl of cereal.

Back in the room we got settled into our beds, and turned the lights off at 8. Myla was asleep in no time, and we weren't long behind here - it'd been a great first day!

Here's the video I made of the meet 'n greets we did this day:

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Old 19 Apr 20, 03:50 PM  
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A great change over day and a good time at Epcot

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Old 19 Apr 20, 08:05 PM  
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What a fantastic day with all those meet & greets! Glad your room in the Grandstand is in a very good location.
Love the video as well!
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Old 20 Apr 20, 11:59 AM  
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Really enjoy reading your trip reports
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Old 20 Apr 20, 10:25 PM  
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Loving the dresses and shirt 😀😀
Back home at Disney 👍
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Old 20 Apr 20, 10:44 PM  
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Another lovely day, thanks for sharing.
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