Allie's Exhausting, Crazy, Super Fun October Trip Report

Our weather was great, mid 80s the entire week and just overcast enough we didn't have to worry too much about sunscreen. It sprinkled for 5 min one day at Epcot and that was the only rain we ever saw.

We also ate A LOT so there will be plenty of food pictures to post

Oh most definitely happy tears! I started crying when they played the video on the ME and it pretty much spiraled from there the rest of the trip

Just catching up on all the posts I missed while my photos upload and then I'll get started, I promise I apologize for the quality of some (most) of the pictures. Our camera did not take well to the Florida heat, apparently. It's used to brisk Minnesota days I guess!

Day 1

We woke up to our alarm at 4:30am to get ready and be at the airport in plenty of time for our 7:30am flight. Normally it takes me a couple of snoozes to slowly force myself out of bed, but this morning my eyes popped open and I was ready to get moving. It was Disney Day! Airport and flight went smoothly (Lots of excited kids, many of whom you could tell it was their first time on an airplane. Lots of "ooh"s and "ah"s and "cool!"s yelled out throughout the flight) and by 11:45am we were in line for the Magical Express.

Once on the bus, I was bouncing up and down in my seat like a little kid I was so excited! Jon remarked how we were worse than most of the kids because we had no adults to control us! They started up the video which started with a bunch of different families surprising their kids with trips to Disney World. Here's where the waterworks start. I had tears running down my face after being in Florida for less than an hour! Even Jon was pretty impressed and he knows what a big sap I am!

Our hotel was the first stop for the ME, so before we knew it we were pulling up to the check-in center for CBR!

We checked in quickly and caught a bus over to Jamaica to find our room. Our room was about the closest to the bus stop as you could get and we were the first pickup and first drop off spot for CBR which was really nice.

We explored the room a bit and admired the Mickey shampoo and the fish towel animal that Jon found. The room was perfectly fine, but we weren't super wowed by anything. The decor and setup was pretty average and there were a few spots in the shower you could tell hadn't been cleaned in quite a while. No big complaints, but we are looking forward to trying a different resort next time we go.

After our quick sweep of the room, we threw down our carry-on luggage and ran over to the bus stop, anxious to officially start our Disney vacation. I was become impatient because I had yet to see any quintessential Disney landmarks (I was watching the video when we passed under the "Welcome to Walt Disney World" sign so I missed it!) and just wanted to see the castle, the ball, the hat, or the tree to confirm that I was, in fact, in the World. After what felt like forever, we rounded the corner and caught our first glimpse of Disney.

I was beyond giddy! We speed walked into Epcot and headed straight for Soarin' to grab a fastpass. From there we headed back to the World Showcase. We were starving by this point since it was nearing 2:00pm and we hadn't eaten anything since 6:00am at the airport. World Showcase was definitely crowded, as I had been warned it would be on a Saturday, but I think because we had set our expectations so high for how bad the crowds would be, it didn't seem to faze us at all. We skipped past the exceptionally long lines at Greece and Canada and headed back to France for our first F&WF booth. On the way, we stopped for a picture with Cinderella's family.

Once we made it to France, we ordered the Escargot Persillade en Brioche, Coq au Vin sur Gratin de Macaroni, and a Sparkling Pomegrante Kir to wash it down. I was a little nervous about trying my first escargot, but we both thought everything at this booth was fantastic and the escargot ended up being one of Jon's favorite things we tried the whole trip.

We then made a beeline for the New Zealand Booth for Seared Sea Scallop with Kumara Red Curry Puree and Apple Radish Salad and a Lamb Meatball with Spicy Tomato Chutney. Both were delicious but the sea scallop was the clear winner for me. It was incredible!

We took a break to explore the Morocco pavilion for a bit...

...before heading over to the Singapore booth for some Beef Rendang with Jasmine Rice and a STRONG Sinagpore Sling with gin.

We got in line for the Japan booth next, but as you can see below, the lines were getting kind of insane.

I was also feeling that Singapore sling pretty hard so we got our Spicy Hand Roll with tuna & salmon and Sukiyaki Beef Pan from Japan and decided to take a break in the Canada pavilion.

On our way we saw a line for Aladdin and Jasmine that we couldn't pass up since Aladdin is Jon's absolute favorite Disney movie. While in line we chatted with a cast member who had worked for awhile at Art of Animation but had now been moved to monitoring lines at the parks for awhile since she had hurt herself (one of her wrists was in a sling and the other in a brace). She told us all about Art of Animation and about how much she had loved working there and hoped to go back once her injuries had healed.

After our picture, we made a second attempt to get over to Canada but stopped again for a picture with Mary Poppins.

Finally, we went over to catch Oh, Canada. The movie was fun and Jon loved the circle vision, however, I don't recommend it once you've had a couple of drinks because the combo of the circle vision and the side effects of my Singapore Sling were making me quite queasy. We decided to leave World Showcase for a bit and head over to Future World to catch a few rides and shows on that side of the park.

Up next: Our adventures in Future World and fighting through the crazy, drunken slobs for dinner on a Saturday at the F&WF

Thanks! Lizzy, go get one of those scallops now! Run! I could have eaten 12 of those suckers, they were so good!

Again, there was nothing really wrong with CBR per se, it was very nice and we had a pleasant time there. We just didn't love it or was blown away by anything like I'd expect to be at a Disney resort. We're planning on the Boardwalk next time so we're hoping for more of a wow-factor there!

Day 1 Cont.

We hung a left out of World Showcase and headed over to the Imagination pavilion. We had some fun with the shooting water, though Jon was frustrated he couldn't get a better picture of it.

We saw that Captain EO only had a 5 min way and, on par with what we could expect for the rest of the trip, 5 min wait apparently = walk right on. We watched the pre-show movie, grabbed our 3-D glasses, and entered the theater. Despite popular opinion, we loved Captain EO! Michael Jackson in his glory days dancing and singing to fight the evil aliens! What more could you want? It was cheesy, it was 3-D, it was great.

We then went on Journey Into Your Imagination which I had been talking up to Jon the whole day since I had loved Figment as a kid. He didn't really get it, partially due to not growing up with it and partially due to refurbs I think, but I still enjoyed the ride.

We skipped the land pavilion since we knew we'd be back later with our fastpasses, and instead cut over to the Seas and rode The Seas with Nemo and Friends. I loved the projections into the aquarium, but we missed a lot of what was being said because there was a LARGE group of loud kids with two parents trying to control them in the seashells surrounding us. Grrr.

We got off and went over to Turtle Talk. Jon and I both adored this! The technology in it was fantastic. We had one kid in our group who's "question" turned out just to be a long story about how one time she fell asleep and had a bad dream and fell out of bed and bumped her head. Crush totally went along with it and kept asking her questions instead of brushing her off which I thought was cool.

Next we went to ride Spaceship Earth where we again walked right on. I loved the new (well probably not new, but new since I had last been there) stuff at the end where you could pick your future. We had fun playing with all the Siemens games at the end, as well. On our way out of Spaceship Earth we decided to try out Club Cool. I had been so excited to try and trick Jon into trying Beverly, but he actually LIKED it! Yuck! What a letdown. Neither of us found anything we really enjoyed at Club Cool so we journeyed on.

We headed over to explore the Welcome Center for the F&WF which was deserted. We had fun looking at the sculptures of chocolate made by some of the Disney pastry chefs.

I also spent a good while browsing through the merchandise and found a ton of kitchen supplies I wanted, but snapped out of it and realized I probably shouldn't spend our entire budget on the first day.

As we headed out of the Welcome Center we saw that Mission Space had a 5 min wait for the green side and a 10 min wait for the orange. Jon doesn't do spectacularly well with simulators so we opted for green. 5 min wait my butt. We not only walked right on, but there was a family of three that were the only other people there. We got our own car, blasted into outer space, saved the day, and came back down to earth. Both of us agreed that the green side was enough for us and decided against upgrading to orange.

By now it was about 8:00pm so we headed back to World Showcase for some dinner. It had now become full out crazy. People were drunk and stumbling all over, passed out on the side walk, making obscene gestures from inside the phone booths, and feeling each other up at the Off Kilter concert. I was a little disturbed that people felt it appropriate to act like this at Disney, and I know I would have been NOT happy had I had any kids with me. I just wanted to get food and hightail it out of there.

Canada still had a super long line, of course, but people were obviously not paying attention because the booth had a line on either side open and the side we came to had one person in it. Score! We ordered the Canadian Cheddar Cheese, Chicken Chipotle Sausage with Sweet Corn Polenta, Le Cellier Wild mushroom Beef Filet Mignon with Truffle Butter Sauce, and Apple Ice Wine and made a little picnic on a clear spot of sidewalk since there were no open benches, tables, or even trash cans in sight. The soup of course was incredible, the filet was delicious but a little on the tough side (which I will completely contribute to it being the end of the night and let it slide), and we both enjoyed the sausage but not as much as we had expected.

We both were anxious to get out of the crowds so we decided to split and Jon headed to the Dessert and Champagne booth while I ventured over to Hawaii and we met back with our findings. Jon got us Dessert Trio the dessert trio of Yogurt Panna Cotta with Orange Cake, Raspberries, and Pomegranate, Lemon Custard Verrine with Blueberry Compote, and Dark Chocolate Mousse with Chili and Salted Caramel. I'm a lemon freak so I thought the custard was clearly the best.

From Hawaii I grabbed us a Kalua Pork Slider with Sweet and Sour Dole Pineapple Chutney and Spicy Mayonnaise and Tuna Poke with Seaweed Salad and Lotus Root Chips. I loved the Tuna Poke and Jon hated it, I was indifferent towards the slider and Jon loved it, so we both finished off our respective dish.

I was still pretty full from our late lunch and desperately wanted out of the World Showcase, so we started towards the Land pavilion to ride Soarin', stopping for Jon's first Mickey Bar on the way.

Soarin' had a 45 min wait, by far the longest wait we had encountered all day, and even with our fastpasses we waited about 5 to 10 min before we got on the ride. Neither of us had ever been on Soarin' so we weren't really sure what to expect, but we both LOVED it! What a great way to make us forget about some of the horrors we had just seen in WS. I was back in my happy place.

We both wanted to go on again, but the standby line was still just as long and we were both exhausted so we decided to skip a second run on Soarin', skip Illuminations, and head back to the bus.

Up next: Universal's got nothing on Disney and dinner at Kona Cafe

Thanks for all the positive feedback! On to day 2!

Day 2:

First of all I woke up to this surprise from Jon today. What a guy!

I was really excited for this day because it would be both of our first times at Wizarding World of Harry Potter (we're both big Harry Potter fans) and Jon's first time at Universal. We would always make time for Universal on our Disney trips when I was a kid and I remembered it just being awesome!

We woke up early enough to make the 7:35am pickup from Mears to get to the park plenty early for the 9am opening of Islands of Adventure. Each of us donned our Harry Potter ties that Jon had gotten me as a gift before the trip, Jon in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw for me.

As soon as the park opened we, along with 95% of the other people waiting in line, made a beeline to the back of the park to Harry Potter.

We went straight to Ollivander's since I had heard this wait could get extreme, and even getting in line right away we were in line for about 20 to 25 min.

Line at Ollivander's 10 min after park opening

Jon went to grab us a frozen butterbeer while we waited, which we both really enjoyed.

The Ollivander's show was cute, but definitely not worth the wait. I couldn't imagine if we had waited for 2 hours like our friends had the previous summer! The show led right into a gift shop where we experienced Universal prices for the first time. $30 for a mug?! Are you insane, Universal?! We picked up a Gryffindor and Slytherin cheap plastic versions of the mugs for each of my sisters and then ran out of there before we could convince ourselves we needed a $40 wand.

We went over to the Forbidden Journey next which listed only a 10 min wait. The only thing that took 10 min though was walking through the queue (which was really cool, but incomplete in my opinion), and once we got up to the ride we walked right on. This was hands down our favorite Universal ride. The effects were amazing and I was screaming the whole time! Think Soarin' with a flight that twists and spins and throws you into a new section with live-action spiders, dementors, etc, then throws you back into the Soarin' type area. It. Was. Awesome.

Our original plan was to do Ollivander's and Forbidden Journey and then save the rest of WWoHP for later in the day, but I didn't want to leave yet so we kept exploring. We rode The Flight of the Hippogriff, a cute kiddy coaster where you can see Hagrid's hut and Buckbeak...

..and Dueling Dragons which was fun, but of course not as cool as I remember when they used to set off both coasters at the same time. When we got off Dueling Dragons we were pretty hungry so we decided on Three Broomsticks for lunch. We split the fish and chips which were delicious!

After lunch, we left WWoHP and entered Jurassic Park. We explored the Welcome Center and rode the water ride (the name escapes me now) and then walked through the kids' jungle gym area (similar to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground at Disney), but we quickly ran out of things to do.

Toon Lagoon was next where we rode Dudley-Do Right's Ripsaw Falls...

...and the Bilge Rat Barges where we got completely soaked. Jon was hungry again so he grabbed a burger while I took some pictures.

Again, we were out of stuff to do. We headed into the Marvel Super Hero area and got in the 10 min wait for the Amazing Adventures of Spiderman.

The ride was fun, but I was a little let down, mostly because it was very similar to the Harry Potter ride but just not quite as good. Maybe if I had ridden this one first I would have a better review of it. I did think it was pretty funny that the young couple waiting in front of us got up to the front of the line with their maybe 7 month old baby that was asleep in the stroller and the person running the line asked if they were doing the child swap and they told her no, they just planned on holding the baby during the ride. It was so weird that the lady didn't even understand what they were asking at first! She finally sputtered out "No....NO! You have to be 42 inches tall to ride!" Either this guy just did not realize what sort of ride he was in for or he should definitely hold off on sending in his application for parent of the year.

When we got off the ride, Jon and I sat and had a pow wow. We had already told Mears that we wanted to be picked up at 7:15pm (enough time to get back for our dinner reservations at 8:45pm) but it was only about 2:00pm at this time and we were burned out. Universal was frankly just not what we had expected. It was loud, it was harsh, there was a lot of metal and grime and just felt like our local amusement park back home. Even WWoHP had felt kind of half-done in retrospect. We just wanted to be back at Disney. So we called Mears and moved our pickup time to 5:15pm and went off to explore the rest of Universal.

We skipped the Hulk Coaster and Dr. Doom's Drop for now because Jon was getting a headache from all the thrill rides. We decided to take it easy and head over to the Suess Landing part of the park.

We rode the Cat and the Hat ride which was a lot like Winnie the Pooh but with a lot more unnecessary spinning.

After the ride we decided we were even more anxious to leave and get back to the hotel so we called Mears AGAIN and moved our pickup to 4:15pm which gave us about an hour left before we should start heading back.

We left Suess Landing and entered The Lost Continent where we were hoping to catch the Poseidon's Adventure Tour/Show, but it told us the next tour didn't start for another 20 min so we headed back to WWoHP for another butterbeer. On the way we were stopped by some people in the street trying to fill up their last two seats for a free magic show. The guy told us it would only take about 12 min which was perfect timing with Poseidon so we went in. The "show" turned out to be a 12 min long commercial for all of the magic trick supplies that you could buy once the show was over. Not one trick was done without stopping to explain how it was done and the set you could buy to be able to do it on your own. The whole thing left a really bad taste in our mouths and reminded us again why Disney is so much better.

With 5 min left of our 20 min, we headed back to Poseidon's Adventure which now stated the next tour as starting in 25 min. What?! We gave up any hopes of getting to do this one as the bus was coming soon, so we turned back around for a butterbeer to drink on our way the Mears pickup. When we walked past Poseidon's Adventure again on our way out, the next tour apparently started in 30 min. Clearly this was not a schedule of start times, but a wait time for the ride which was very confusing when you state it as "The next tour starts in...."

We had to pass through Suess Landing again on our way out and the little train ride that rode up over Suess Landing had only a 5 min wait. We had 25 min before we needed to be back at the bus and I really wanted to attempt to leave Universal on a good note and a relaxing train ride over the park seemed to fit the bill perfectly. We climbed up a long stairway to get up to the top and to the turnstiles where we stopped. Apparently the last couple of trains had broken down on the track and people were stuck out there so they didn't know how long it would be before the train was up and running. Perfect.

We waited it out for about 10 min, but then realized there was no way that we would be able to do the train ride and get back to the bus at this point, even if the ride started up right that second and I knew they were planning on sending an empty test train first before they'd let anyone else on. So we left Seuss Landing a little downtrodden and ready to go "home". On a side note, as we were exiting the ride, some of the people who had been stuck on there were just getting off and employee was giving them all free water bottles and some type of coupon or certificate as compensation which I did think was nice.

Up Next: It all gets better with a dinner at Kona Cafe!