Five Fords Fifth Family Floriday Aug 18 - Day 15 - Visiting 4 Disney Parks in a day!

[juliab]

Wednesday 22nd August

After a really good sleep night’s sleep we were up and having our morning coffee and tea out on the balcony. Our neighbour’s walked by and we said morning to them, first time we’d seen anyone out here. After eating some pastries for breakfast in our room we were heading out at 9.30am ready for the day ahead.

Today we were going to visit all of the 4 parks but still wanted to make it a leisurely kind of day.

Now we’ve always had a car whilst in Florida so it did seem a little strange to us not walking to the car park. I really wanted Scott to make a bit of use of the new changes to the Dining Plan and enjoy a beer with his evening meal. I knew if we still had the car he’d say let’s use it so by not having a car he’d not have an option the drive.

Anyhow we were using Disney transportation from now on but firstly we had to find the bus stop which was a bit of a challenge for us. Of course we got lost even though the stop West Depot wasn’t too far away from our building.

Looking at the timetable it said a bus for Animal Kingdom was due in 2 minutes but this kept changing and we waited around 15 minutes for a bus to arrive. It was half full but we managed to get on which was all we needed.

We arrived at Animal Kingdom at 10.15 so not bad really and of course we didn’t have the walk from the parking lot which we sometimes do.

After we’d been through bag check I noticed a lady sat talking into her phone, vlogging actually. I spotted it was a vlogger we’d watched quite a few times called Liz Linen. She visited the oulets regularly and went to the Character Warehouse and vlogged about what stock was currently there.

I noticed she’d stopped so as she got up we went over to say hi. She was really lovely and we said how much we enjoyed watching her vlogs and went on to tell her about some of bargains we’d picked up from the outlets.

Liz asked if we wanted to say hello in her vlog so of course Poppy and I said yes! It was really lovely to talk to her and she seemed really happy to have been stopped by one of her subscribers.

We then proceeded to enter Animal Kingdom, thankfully no queue’s this morning but it was busy inside.

I’d booked 2 fast passes for here the first one being for Everest. It was turn to take Hayden and Jamie and on and wow as always I absolutely loved it! One of the best rides in Disney for sure!

Walked back across the park to Pandora and as we did we saw that the sky was starting to turn really grey? Quite a few menacing clouds in the distance but thankfully we had actually remembered to pack the poncho’s so if it did start to rain we should be ok.

The wait time for Navi River was 95 mins thank goodness we had a fast pass, our wait time was just 5 minutes. Really like the music on this ride and visually it’s a treat too.

We said that we’d get a photo pass photo taken in each park along with a classic snack/food item of some kind. Decided that a good place to pick up a snack would be Starbucks so we headed over there next. Sure enough there was loads of goodies to choose from, we opted for a Mickey Cinnamon bun which is a great use for a snack credit along with a drink and another cupcake.

Had our photo taken and then we headed out of the park.

We managed to find the bus stop for Hollywood Studio’s ok and we only had to wait a few minutes before a bus came along.

Wow when we arrived we couldn’t believe how long the walk was from the bus stops to the entrance with all the alterations that were happening. Thankfully there were still lots of cloud so it wasn’t blazing sun beating down on us whilst we walked to the park. It also wasn’t raining either.

Once in the park we headed to Star Tours as I’d managed to get a fast pass after we’d used our Navi River one. Brilliant as ever!

Used a snack credit on a funnel cake, oh my word we couldn’t get over the size of it.

We needed to find some cover as it started to rain so we went in the Backlot Express to find some cover whilst demolishing this delicious snack. Also had a couple of drinks from there too and sat for a while until the shower passed over.

We left the Hollywood Studios then but not after getting a photopass pic took!

Thought we would walk down to the dock to catch the boat over to Epcot. This was something we’d never done before so we were quite looking forward to the change of transport.

As we arrived at the dock we could see lightning in the distance so we weren’t sure whether the boats would be running? After around 10 minutes a boat arrived so it was all good. It made for a really relaxing ride travelling this way. It might not have been the quickest way to get to Epcot but it was definitely really scenic.

Arrived at Epcot and it was another first for us entering through the International Gateway entrance.

We picked up a classic snack on our walk into Future Land.

I’d managed to get a fast pass for a ride, but Hayden really wanted to go on Test Track.


The wait time for 100 minutes, we managed to obtain a return time using Hayden’s disability assistance card. In the mean time we had something to eat at Sunshine Season’s.
We shared a couple of quick service meals as we weren’t particularly hungry but needed a bit of something inside us all. There’s certainly a lot of choice in here and the food was really good.

After we’d finished we went to our fast pass at Figments. We had a queue a little while to go on this which quite surprised us. Still we were in no rush to go anywhere so it didn’t really matter. It was enjoyable, Poppy really loves this one, and we had fun playing on the games afterwards.

We still had some time to kill so had a look around some of the shops before our return time opened at 4.15 and had a photopass pic taken.

Test Track was really busy the fast pass queue was really long too but the good thing was it kept moving. Before long we were designing our cars.

We sped out onto the track I really do love that part it feels so fast! At the end though it seemed to slow down sooner? It then started to rain and as we exited the ride an announcement was made to say the ride was now closed. How lucky were we!

Afterwards we played on the games for quite some time and had fun looking and sitting in the cars. What with it raining there wasn’t any great rush to be going anywhere else anytime soon.

Once the rain was over with we caught the monorail over to Magic Kingdom, loved how we’d used yet another mode of transport today.
It was really busy when we got to Magic Kingdom.

I’d managed to book the Jungle Cruise on the monorail over to the park so that would be our first stop.

Our Captain was really funny and there were lots of good old fashioned corny jokes which is what you’d expect on this classic trip.
After the cruise was over we still had a bit of time before our ADR so we jumped on Pirates of the Caribbean as the wait time was only 15 minutes. We ended up getting quite wet on this one!

It was now time for our ADR at Skippers Canteen, this would be our first visit here and we were very keen to try a new restaurant in Magic Kingdom.

We had a bit of a wait before our table was ready but it was worth it as we had a lovely spot in the Jungle room which felt really private and was fairly quiet too.

Our server came over and was full to the brim with jokes as he went through the menu!
We ordered some drinks and again it was nice to choose an alcoholic drinks as part of the Disney Plan.

The food here was actually very good we all enjoyed our mains.

We especially loved the desserts here and we ended up with an extra one as he mixed up one of the dessert orders.

Would really recommend this place and would happily eat here again if the opportunity arose.

Because it was so near we watched the show in the Enchanted Tiki room.

We then walked across to Main St to find ourselves a spot to watch the show but firstly we had our photo taken as we'd forgotten to get one done on our way in!

Oh my word it was so busy and so difficult to find anywhere to stand. I know leaving it until the last moment isn’t really a great idea but we didn’t want to be staking out a spot 2 hours beforehand either!

Anyway the show started but we couldn’t see any of the castle as a child who was on somebody’s shoulders and holding a balloon had blocked it all out. We could see the fireworks though.

A little further on into the show we were able to see some of the castle.

I think we should have just stood at the back somewhere so we could listen to the music and watch the fireworks instead. It didn’t seem to make sense as we were trying to work out what was being shown on the castle? It kind of made it a little muddled up for us. We did enjoy seeing some fireworks but we weren’t blown away with Happily Ever After. I’d kept hearing how amazing it was so I think my expectations were a little too high and that’s why I felt disappointed with it all. Never mind hopefully we’ll get to see it again and we’ll hopefully enjoy it a bit more.

We managed to get through the crowds over to Tomorrow Land where we rode on the People Mover. As we went through the Space Mountain section it seemed different? The lights were on and we saw Space Mountain, looked so much different, quite strange really!

It was EMH so we were able to go on a few more rides. The lines were still quite long for attractions like 7DMT so we headed over to Goofy’s Barnstormer as the line here was quite short. Hayden, Jamie and Poppy went on it whilst we watched.

Poppy chose Ariel’s Undersea Adventure next which is just so sweet.
We had our last snack from Storybook Treat’s, wow we couldn’t believe how busy it was here, loads of people buying ice cream so late at night – us included!

It was now 11pm so we’d been on the go for 15 hours which is a long time for the likes of us. Poppy especially was starting to feel it so we decided to leave.

#
Managed to find our bus stop ok and luckily we only waited 5 minutes before a bus came. No issues getting on as it was so quiet now.
Back at our room we noticed a frog on the outside wall along with a brightly coloured lizard? Wasn’t sure what it was?

Inside the maid had made a lovely towel decoration in our window for us, so cute.
I took these photo's in the morning

We were in bed for 11.30 after an absolutely brilliant day visiting the main parks. The kid’s had really loved it and so had we!

Thanks for reading

[Fuellady]

What a long day for you all - a good one though. I've read of other people doing 4 parks in one day and it seems a rush to cram it all in, but you took it at a nice pace and still managed to do everything you wanted.

It's a shame you weren't blown away by Happily ever After, maybe you would feel differently if you had a better view. I really loved it all, the music, projections and the fireworks but I can see how it might feel like something was missing if you couldn't see the projections. I hope you get the chance to see it again from a better view point.

[juliab]

Originally Posted by Fuellady

What a long day for you all - a good one though. I've read of other people doing 4 parks in one day and it seems a rush to cram it all in, but you took it at a nice pace and still managed to do everything you wanted.

It's a shame you weren't blown away by Happily ever After, maybe you would feel differently if you had a better view. I really loved it all, the music, projections and the fireworks but I can see how it might feel like something was missing if you couldn't see the projections. I hope you get the chance to see it again from a better view point.

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We had a really relaxed day and it was no real effort at all. This was one of our favourite days of the holiday.

It was a shame we definitely needed a better view!

Thank you Lynda for reading and commenting

[Elsa42]

What a relaxing 4 parks in 1 day! Managed to get what you wanted done and still enjoyed the day and relaxed! Enjoyed reading! 😊 Shane you didn’t enjoy HEA as much! I think certain views are better for this show.

[juliab]

Originally Posted by Elsa42

What a relaxing 4 parks in 1 day! Managed to get what you wanted done and still enjoyed the day and relaxed! Enjoyed reading! 😊 Shane you didn’t enjoy HEA as much! I think certain views are better for this show.

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This was one of our favourite days and one of most relaxed days too.
Yes i think it probably does depend a little on the viewpoint, I'm sure I'll enjoy it more another time.

Thanks for reading