Tuesday, December 24, 2024

The one I am DEFINITELY planning - Day 7

This morning we were awake at about 0730 and Rob and I started our last load of washing ahead of the rest of our trip.

We had breakfast, packed our bags and got ready to leave our room 

We dropped our bags with Bell Services and left the hotel at 11 when we dropped Jennifer and Tom at the airport for their flight home.

I asked Tom for his highs and lows of the trip:

He really enjoyed Galaxy’s Edge, although I was unable to get an answer in terms of which ride was his favourite.

Another highlight was Space Mountain, partly because he has a vague recollection from when he visited as a child.

He also said that Dinosaur was impressive, apparently he has listened to Jennifer talk about the ride vehicle for a long time (she worked on the ride don’t forget) and he was also happy to finally understand the dialogue….because you have to say “we’re not going to make it” at random times don’t you 

Finally, he really enjoyed our meal at Space 220, I think it helped that we had a really good cast member as our server. I also think the location helped 

Back to the rest of our trip:

Next, we went to the Outdoor World (we had seen it the other day but run out of time) and then checked into Rosen Inn at Pointe where we were staying for the night.







We went over to the premium outlets at Vineland where we had Shake Shack for lunch before doing some more shopping.



We might have got some more shoes (in fact I definitely got 2 new pairs of boots) before we left at about 1730.

We went back to Wilderness Lodge to collect our luggage before driving over to Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner at Sana’a.

We were a little early so we sat in one of the little lobby areas until it was our reservation time.




We started as always with the bread service - naans only as we don’t like the others.


I then had the chicken and veg curry while Rob had butter chicken and rajma masala in a slight change (he doesn’t always have the rajma masala).




Finally, we had giraffe cake and ankole cake for dessert, these looked fab but the giraffe cake was definitely the best of the two (which was Rob’s choice).



The total cost after DVC discount was around $140.

It was now around 2100 so we headed back to pointe to bed for the night.



Friday, December 20, 2024

The one I am DEFINITELY planning! Day 6 - Epcot

This morning despite not having an enforced alarm I woke up at 0655 so that I was ready to book us a virtual queue for Guardians of the Galaxy. I got it sorted and then went back to sleep 

I can’t remember what time I got up but I do know that we had breakfast in the room based on the one photo I took.

There's a reason behind the photo (I'm not actually crazy)


We got ready and headed across to Epcot where we entered the park at about 1130, we had decided not to purchase any lightning lanes as our days so far had been quite quiet.


We started off with Journey into Imagination with Figment as it had one of the shortest waits, and then as we left the ride I met Figment as his line was not too long. He did take a short break while I was in line but he was back very quickly.


We then took a quick walk through the new Moana attraction which didn’t take us long, we also managed a trip on Spaceship Earth before heading to Space for our lunch at Space 220.



We started with a mix of salad, cauliflower and beets (I think), which we all enjoyed.






Next, we had salmon, chicken tenders, a burger and a steak which again we all enjoyed, and the chicken tenders were a request due to dietary requirements which was no problem for our server.





Rob and Jennifer both had drinks with glow cubes and got some little cards which they accepted in childlike fashion and then argued over who got the ‘special’ card. Ok, so it wasn’t really an argument 


Dessert was cheesecake (although I don’t think Jennifer had one), these were great. Although I did feel a bit mean when cracking it open!


Next, we returned to earth and started off with Living with the Land which claimed to have a 20 min wait, but I think it was about 15 in the end.






We decided to do Soarin’ before leaving the building, the wait was about 40 mins but just as we got to the front there was an issue with our concourse (I suspect someone had been unwell on the ride). We were moved to another concourse and did get our preferred front row middle section so Tom avoided the wonky Eiffel Tower.

Rob as always was bored, and the delay didn’t help.

We had been waiting for our Guardians window to open but it had been down for a little while and so it took longer than expected. When we joined the line I did think it looked long, and sadly it was, I think it took us about and hour.



Jennifer popped over to The Seas while we were in line and saw the manatees and I think she may have gone on Nemo although I am not sure.

We quickly took Tom into Club cool before heading to the World Showcase. By now, it was about 1830 and a Friday night (and Food and Wine) so it was really busy!

We popped into all of the countries but the rides had really long lines – even Mexico! So we didn’t ride them which was a shame.


We stopped in Italy for some pizza and a drink, and it started to get chilly. Rob considered buying a jacket in Norway but decided not to.




We had a quick look for a cast member I ‘know’ from Instagram but it was super busy and I couldn’t see her in any of the places.

We carried on around and left the World Showcase at about 2020. It was getting too chilly for us so we decided to skip the fireworks.


We went back to Living with the Land because we thought there were Christmas lights at night, it turns out they didn’t start until after thanksgiving so we were all disappointed by that 





We literally walked out of the park at 2100 and we were back at Wilderness Lodge at about 2130. We popped into the Roaring Form to get snacks I got the magic cookie bar and the wilderness bark latte while Rob had a cake of some form.




We were chatting to the cast member while waiting for my drink and then Tom decided he wanted a hot chocolate, so because of the famous ‘first visit’ badge he got it for free which was nice 

Overall, we had a good day but with hindsight if we had got a few lightning lanes we could have gone to World Showcase earlier and got those last few rides in. We hadn’t done badly though over our 4 days really.