Trip report. Myself, wife, 9 and 4.99 year old sons, and their grandmother. As an aside, note that this is a long write up that I’m using as a log of our trip so we can look back on it later. As such, I’m using full names of everything instead of acronyms.
Let me preface this with my pre-trip prep. We started planning on making the trip ~9 months before the actual date, at which point I went to work planning. I’m an engineer, so it’s what I do. I wanted to optimize the trip to go as smoothly as possibly, while balancing everyone’s enjoyment level with not burning people out. I eventually decided on 3 days in Disney World, 1 day in Universal, then 3 days at the tail of the trip to leave open for doing whatever. I believe this worked out incredibly well, although if it wasn’t for doing a VIP Tour on Day 1 at Disney, we would have definitely needed 4 days there to see and do everything we managed to fit in.
Planning during Covid wasn’t easy. I’d ask friends/family about their trips, and they’d recommend things like FastPass, merchandise sent to hotel room, etc; basically, things that I knew weren’t possible any more. It was a constant battle to find advise, then check the date of such advice, and then verify if it was still accurate or not. It was very frustrating, but I knew that it was worth it as the trip wouldn’t have been nearly as fulfilling if I hadn’t done the research. My largest regret in that process is that I only stumbled on DISboard a mere week before we left on the trip. So many questions could’ve been answered faster and more accurately that what ended up happening. Regardless, the trip was amazing, and I know everyone will cherish the memories for the rest of their lives.
Trip day 1, Sat 1/15: Traveling to Orlando
Our flight was a bit delayed leaving Denver, but we made up some time in the air and only landed ~10 min late in Orlando at 1:45PM. Went down to grab luggage, fully expecting to see someone from Ultimate Town Car there greeting us with a sign, as we had a reservation with them to take us to our hotel. I was really looking forward to seeing the driver with a name board this since my last name is Mears, which as I’m sure all of you know is a very popular transportation company in the area. There was no guy with a sign, but I received a call and was instructed to call them once we had our bags. I did this, told the guy which door we were at, and waited. And waited. All told, we waited almost 30 minutes before the driver showed up.
The trip to Animal Kingdom Jambo House went well. I asked a few questions, we talked about a skywriter who I believe was writing “Find Jesus. Don’t Hate” but it was apparently pretty windy as his work was quickly blowing away. Checked in with the front desk at Jambo, and were told that our room wasn’t ready, but they were sending someone down from club level services (?) to bring us up to their longue area. This was news to me, as I thought we had just booked a 1-bedroom suite with savanna view, but apparently we got club level as well.
As we were making our way to the club level longue, we discovered that we left our magic bands at home. Arg. We actually gave them as Christmas presents to everyone, as that is when we revealed that we were going on this trip. We even joked about the fact that we would probably forget them. Well, we did. I ran to the gift shop and grabbed 5 new ones and got them programed. We waited around enjoying the free snacks and drinks until our room was ready. I really wish they had Yuengling, as that is a forbidden fruit for us (can’t get it on my side of the Mississippi River), but beggars can’t be choosers. I also wish that the club level longue had a view of the savanna, as that is the reason we were at the resort, but as it is it just has a view of the hotel atrium. During this time, hotel Cast members brough out an ice cream dish for the Youngest’s birthday, which we all helped in eating.
Our room was ready soon thereafter. We headed there, got settled in, and enjoyed the view until it was time to leave for our 5PM reservation at Boma – Flavors of Africa. We ate and ate and ate. Everything was amazing there! When I was making reservations, I was trying to book at Sanaa for the savanna views while dining, but the earliest I could get in (even though I tried booking right as the reservation window opened for me) was 8:20PM. I figured that would feel like 6:20 to us, so we’d do a late lunch at Boma and then dinner at Sanaa. Well, everyone was so stuffed from Boma that we decided to cancel our Sanaa reservations. Afterwards we went in the pool that was a bit too chilly if I’m honest, although it was only ~50°F out. We played for a few hours, then headed to bed.
Trip day 2, Sun 1/16: VIP Tour day
We woke up early the next day to my alarm app blaring “Circle of Life”, since I’m funny like that. MAAAAAAA SEVENYAAAA BABAETSIAVA!!!!! Despite my wonderful humor, I found that waking everyone was a struggle as apparently I’m the only one who is a morning person. I was hopeful that the excitement of what was coming would help motivate everyone, but it was difficult to get everyone moving. We ate on some grab-and-go breakfast items that I brought with; mostly cereal/nutrigrain/granola bars.
We rode the shuttle to Magic Kingdom, while keeping an eye on the weather reports. It was sprinkling a decent amount, so we busted out the ponchos. We got to the entrance a bit after 8AM. We walked through almost every shop, trying to wait out the storm. We were glad we did, because at one point the sprinkle had increased into a rain so heavy that you couldn’t see across Main Street USA. Soon it was almost 9AM, the time that we were meeting up with our VIP tour guide, Liza. She was amazing! We introduced ourselves, took off our ponchos as the rain had stopped, and in short order we were on our way. The reason that we wanted to meet her in the park instead of her picking us up at the lodge was because we wanted our sons to get a grandiose entrance as their first Disney experience instead of entering through a cast entrance. I’m glad we did it this way, as it really helped build up the magic for the kids.
We headed straight to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which was going to be the first coaster than either of my son’s had ever ridden. At the youngest’s request, I rode with him while my wife with the eldest. Youngest didn’t enjoy the ride while it was going but changed his tune later when he realized he was safe. However, my eldest loved it instantly. We found out that he laughs hysterically while on roller coasters which was infections in making his riding partner laugh equally as hard, if not more so.
The second ride we went on was Space Mountain. Youngest was too short, so he and Gram sat that one out. Eldest didn’t like that one nearly as much at first, but more on that later. I believe it was because he was in the front seat and because of that had no warning that the ride was going to change direction. From there we hit Peter Pan’s Flight which everyone loved, Haunted Mansion which nobody seemed to really enjoy the visual effects, then Jungle Cruise which the kids liked the visuals while the adults liked the humor, then Pirates of the Caribbean which was another ride met with meh reaction. We were going to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, my childhood favorite from Disneyland, but it was temporarily closed that entire morning.
From there we were driven to Epcot where everyone loved everything we rode. We started with Test Track (the one ride I wish we could’ve done again later since Youngest loved it so much), Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Soarin’ Around the World (Grandma’s favorite as she had been to 9 of the locations in person), and Mission Space: Green. The wife and I had planned on doing Mission Space: Orange on a later date, but that fell through. We were warned that Mission Space: Green wasn’t a great use of VIP Tour time, but we decided to do it anyways since doing so meant that we had done every ride in Epcot so we wouldn’t “have to” return to that park later.
From there we rode to Hollywood Studios, where I wanted to really make use of the VIP Tour time. I asked about Star Tours, but Liza advised against it since the line is typically short. We started with eating at Ronto Roasters, which were really good. We then rode Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, which was really fun. I went in blind, not knowing that it was an interactive experience. Walking around the outside and inside of the Falcon was awesome! Liza advised us which roles we’d be best at. Wife and I were pilots, the boys were gunners, and Gram and Liza were engineers. Come to think of it, I’m not entirely sure what the engineer role actually did. Anyways, from there we did Rise of the Resistance. Again, I went in totally blind, and I’m so glad that I did. Great ride, although I’d never wait 190 minutes (the quoted wait time when we rode) for it. The little steps along the way to the actual ride were highly enjoyable. It almost felt like 2 or 3 rides instead of just one and I’m not ashamed to admit that seeing Poe’s X-wing made me grin like an idiot.
We rode Slinky Dog Dash after that, which everyone loved. Then proceeded on to Toy Story Mania which we all enjoyed except the youngest who didn’t really get a hang of aiming. After that we did Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway which we all loved, then on The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror which the boys enjoyed but didn’t want to do again later. From there we parted ways with Liza, but not before she bought everyone ice cream. In hindsight, and I should’ve asked this before, but apparently VIP Tours round up to the nearest hour. We ended the tour at around 8.5 hours but were charged the full 9 hours. Had I known I would’ve tacked on another ride, although the one I wanted to repeat, Rise of the Resistance, she said we couldn’t do over. I could’ve come up with something though, since we were paying for it anyways.
From there, we headed to our 6:40PM reservation at 50’s Prime Time Café, where everything was amazing. After that, we wandered around a bit, the wife and I hitting up our 8:10PM reservations at Oga’s Cantina for a quick drink and ended up closing the park with another ride on Slinky Dog. All told, we rode 16 rides on the 8.5-hour tour and walked a total of 12.5 miles that day. We were all tired, but I am really proud of how everyone held up.
Trip Day 3, Mon 1/17 MLK day: Venturing out on our own
I went to bed the night before wondering if I should do Genie+ or it if would add stress and complexity to our day. We had already ridden the major attractions but had a few that we wanted to hit again. The adults talked it over, and we decided not to do that. I had really been looking forward to the FastPass system, but obviously that is dead and gone now, and messing with trying to fit rides into our schedules at a set time wasn’t appealing. That said, we did want to ride Rise of the Resistance again, so I did buy Individual Lightning Lane passes for 10:05AM. I could’ve gotten them earlier, but I wanted time to ride during Early Access and early in the day before the crowds grew.
The morning routine went the same as the day before, although this time I woke everyone to the “Star Wars (Main Theme)”. Again, it was a bit of a struggle to get everyone awake, a quick bite to eat, etc. We started the day at Hollywood Studios, and used our early access to ride Slinky Dog Dash. The line was only 20 minutes, but even at that the boys were asking why we couldn’t just cut the line like we had the day before. I was worried that they’d get spoiled being on the VIP Tour the day before, but they fairly easily came to terms with waiting. I brought little vials of bubbles, some popping toys, and various other fidget things, so they were entertained anytime we were in a longer line.
After Slinky, we were going to head to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway RR, but on the walk by Toy Story Mania I saw the wait was only 5 minutes, so we decided on the spot to ride that again. We headed to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway RR afterwards and waited ~40 minutes before we got on. From there we headed to our ILL time at Rise of the Resistance. We were fortunate to get sent down the other hallway, as well as ride the other car, from what we had done the day before. While this wasn’t a massive difference, it was nice to see everything that ride had to offer. Afterwards, we headed to Star Tours where we waited ~25 minutes. Everyone loved this one, although not as much as the other Star Wars rides.
After that, I headed to visited Savi for my 12:05 appointment to build a light saber (no one else wanted to), then 4 of us built droids at our 12:40 appointment. Unfortunately, they were out of lightsaber bags and one sleeve piece that I was wanting to build a Power and Control saber based on, so I went with Elemental Nature. Similarly, the Droid Depot was out of their backpacks, the blue R-series body, and the black personality chip. We made do and are happy with our purchases despite those setbacks. We ate at Docking Bay 7 which was fun, but the seats weren’t the most comfortable. We then headed to Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy, which my youngest loved, before we left the park.
We returned to the hotel to drop off our goodies as the option to send merchandise back to your hotel room was not available at that time. We rested a bit, then headed out to Animal Kingdom park. I had planned on us riding DINOSAUR and the Kilimanjaro Safari, but didn’t realize that everything in that park shut down really early. Expedition Everest was one ride that I was really looking forward to, but it was down for maintenance, so I knew that one wasn’t going to happen. Still, all we were able to do that afternoon was shop for a bit, then head to our youngest’s 5th birthday dinner celebration at Tusker House Restaurant for our 6:55PM reservation. While the character interactions were cool, it almost happened too frequently. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Donald twice each. I also wasn’t prepared for the family style food presentation, which was met with mixed enjoyment. I made the reservation based on the character experience and failed to look beyond that.
We left the park after 8, and everyone was tired. The wife and I had planned on having a date night that night at Epcot during their extended hours, but both of us were exhausted. We “only” walked 8.2 miles that day, but when we returned to the hotel, we found that my wife had sizable blisters on both feet. To her credit, she was a trooper the rest of the trip and never let it get in the way of anything. That said, I feel that we pretty much squandered that 2nd afternoon/evening as we couldn’t do anything in Animal Kingdom other than eat. This is the one part of the trip that I would do differently if I could go back in time.
Trip Day 4, Tue 1/18: Last day at Disney
We started the day exactly the same, except this time to a “Heigh-Ho” alarm. We drugged through the morning routine, again skipping on buying Genie+ but instead getting ILL for Seven Dwarfs at 10:05AM since we were starting at Magic Kingdom. We also had to check out of Animal Kingdom Lodge, which was a whole other level of crazy. We ended up dropping off the luggage at Bell Services, then hopped on a shuttle.
The plan was to use our Early Access to ride Big Thunder Mt RR as it was closed on our previous day at Magic Kingdom. Well, I somehow missed on the fact that Early Access didn’t include Frontierland or Adventure land. I briefly thought about changing the plan to head to Seven Dwarf’s, but I saw that the crowd for that was already massive. I then thought about heading to Space Mountain, but since the eldest didn’t like it on his first time I didn’t think he’d enjoy it the second. We decided to wait it out and rope drop Big Thunder Mt RR alongside people who didn’t have Early Access.
We waited in the cold for ~35 minutes. During this time, work spread that Seven Dwarfs was temporarily closed, so a lot of them were going to be heading over to Big Thunder Mt RR. Once the line started moving, we were quickly passed by a lot of people as our group wasn’t very fast. We had just passed the entrance to Pirates, when word came down from in front of us that Big Thunder Mt RR was down as well. We scrambled and decided to ride Pirates again, since the line was short, and we were literally right there. Once there, we talked about what to do. The boys wanted to ride The Magic Carpets of Aladdin, so we hopped in line for that after we exited Pirate. Once we were in line and boxed in, the Disney app showed that Seven Dwarfs had just opened. I had thought about heading that way instead of riding Carpets but decided against it. Hindsight, we could’ve ridden Seven Dwarfs with only a 5-10 minute wait, which is unheard of. Oh well.
After Magic Carpets, we headed towards Seven Dwarfs. The plan was to ride It’s a Small World (Gram’s historical favorite) then Prince Charming Regal Carousel, but the line for Small World was over 30 minutes at that point so we headed straight to the Carousel. While in line for that, the app notified me that Big Thunder Mt RR had just opened. Had we not been in line, we could’ve walked there and waited ~10-15 minutes to ride that one. 0 for 2 on that front.
The Carousel took surprisingly long, so by the time we were off there wasn’t enough time to comfortably walk to Big Thunder then make it back to Seven Dwarfs before our hour-long ILL time slot was over. We took the time to sit and rest for a sec, bathroom/snack break, etc. We showed up a few minutes early for Seven Dwarfs, and to my surprise our passes were valid. We rode it again, and everyone loved it. It seems that the youngest developed a fondness for coasters after his first one. Slinky was still his favorite, but he said Seven Dwarfs is his second favorite.
After that we headed straight to Big Thunder Mt RR, but the line was already sizable. We waited 45 minutes, and it instantly because everyone’s favorite. I had forgotten how long that ride is, and how much I love it. We then took another breather while eating Dole Whips as I had to figure out how I was going to pick up a rental car. I had reserved a car when I booked the trip through AAA, but I had no clue how/when/where I was supposed to grab it. I was originally told that I’d be picked up from the hotel, but no one there knew anything about that. I had to scramble and call 3 different phone numbers for Alamo before I finally got the right one. I made arrangements with them to be picked up at Ticket and Transport while the rest of the family stayed in Magic Kingdom. The plan was to meet up at Animal Kingdom park right when we could “hop” to that park at 2pm. To my surprise, our eldest wanted to ride Space Mountain again! I figured while he did that, the youngest could ride Speedway while I headed out to grab the car.
While walking to Tomorrowland, we stumbled on the 12:20 parade, which we stood and watched. The line for Space Mountain was estimated to be 50 minutes, but it ended up taking well over an hour. While that was going on, I had to figure out how to get to Ticket and Transport. I found out that I could either ride the monorail or hop on the ferry. As I was exiting Magic Kingdom, I passed Stitch greeting people on a stage, as well as the Winnie the Pooh parade. After I walked out of the park, I saw that a ferry had just started offloading, so I headed that way. While boarding, we were told to “stay on the left side as there is some nature on the dock”. Turns out “nature” is code for a 6’ long snake. That excitement aside, the ferry trip went well. Once I arrived at the other end, I overheard that the monorail had just gone down, so I fortunately made the right decision.
I met with the driver from Alamo, he took me to the Alamo hub, I grabbed the car, drove to Animal Kingdom Lodge, left the car, and hopped the shuttle to Animal Kingdom park. I got there well before the rest of my family, so I thought I’d head in and do some shopping. Well, I didn’t realize that I was before the 2pm time that park hopping starts, so my entry was rejected. I had to sit and wait until then, at which point I entered, shopped for a bit, then left to meet the rest of my family who got there at 3.
We entered the park, took some pictures, happened upon the macaw show, then made out way to Kilimanjaro Safari. We rode that, then grabbed a quick late lunch at the food cart right at the exit while watching a sky writer write the same “Find Jesus. Don’t hate” message in the sky. From there we walked to DINOSAUR, did some shopping, and headed out. We rode the shuttle to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, grabbed the rental and luggage, then headed to the next stop on the trip. Most of the family walked 7 miles, but I actually did 8.5 miles.
Trip day 5, Wed 1/19: Universal Studios
For this part of the trip, we were supposed to stay at the Hard Rock in a 2-bedroom King Suite with garden view. What we were actually given was a room with 2 queen beds that was next door to a suite with a king since bed. Not what we had booked, but it ended up working out. The night before I was informed that while the hotel room key acted as our Early Park Admission as well as Universal Express Unlimited, it didn’t actually contain our ticket. I tried to get tickets sorted in the hotel but was unsuccessful, so I had to walk to guest services in City Walk to get them. Not a major issue, but not something that I wasn’t planning on doing. I’m just glad that I found that out the night before we were supposed to go in the park instead of being turned around at the gate when trying to get in.
My original plan for the morning was to head to Universal’s Islands of Adventure and go straight to Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure (longest ride name ever?). However, that wasn’t one of the available rides for Early Park Admission, so we decided to split the group and have the youngest stay with Gram in Suess Landing riding Cat and the Hat, High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train, and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish while the other 3 of us headed to Velicocoaster. I wasn’t sure how the eldest was going to do on that ride, since that is by far the most extreme ride he’s ever been on (same for my wife and I), but he took it like a champ. We got off and I saw that the wait was only 5 minutes, but neither him nor my wife wanted to ride it again so quickly, so we headed to Hogsmeade and wait in line for Hagrid’s to open. In hindsight, we should’ve rode it at least once more before leaving as later in the day the Eldest asked to ride it again but we didn’t have the time to do so.
We probably ended up waiting ~45 minutes for Hagrid’s which isn’t terrible for that ride but longer than I was hoping it’d take that early in the morning. We all ended up loving it and it dethroned Big Thunder Mt RR as the favorite ride for my wife and eldest. We grabbed some butterbeers and joined up with the other part of our party. We were going to head to Harry Potter’s Forbidden Journey, but it was down so we went in the Express lane for Flight of the Hippogriff. The line for this was surprisingly long at 30 minutes, but that was because everyone who was going to Forbidden Journey went there instead. It was a fun ride, but not one that anyone wanted to do again if we had the time (we didn’t). We started got off the ride and tried to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, the Hogwarts Express was down for the day, so we couldn’t ride that. However, as we were talking, Forbidden Journey opened! This was amazing timing, as we were literally 50’ away from the entrance. I had forgotten that our youngest was too short for this one as well, so he and Gram sat this one out. The other three of us literally just walked on, rode it, then we swapped kid watching duties and sent Gram with the Eldest who wanted to ride it again. My timing luck had finally turned around.
We went into the Ollivander’s branch location in Hogsmeade, Dervish and Banges, where I was hopeful that one of our kids would be chosen for the wand choosing ceremony, but at the last second a cute ~7-year-old girl in full Gryffindor attire walked in, and she was obviously chosen. After that show, we proceeded into the very cramped wand shop. We were disappointed with the wand selections, as it seemed like they only had a handful of wands that weren’t character wards from the books/movies. The boys ended up getting a wand, but the adults left empty handed.
We then headed to the Three Broomsticks for lunch. The restaurant itself was amazing, but the ordering/waiting for food experience was pretty bad. It took forever, even though there were tons of empty tables. We got our food, the wife and I being disappointed that we couldn’t get alcohol along with it, but instead had to go to the bar on the other side of the restaurant. She ended up getting a pumpkin juice that we all tried and agreed that it didn’t taste like much, while I got another butterbeer. Once we were seated, I walked to the bar and bought the wife and I a Triple, which is the new name for the Deathly Hallows that they apparently can’t sell by that name anymore. It was good, but we are both fans of black and tan, so I knew we’d like it.
After lunch, we returned to the hotel for a bit before hoping on the City Walk ferry, having previously walked to Islands of Adventure, to head to Universal Studios Florida. Once there, we hit Despicable Me Minion Mayhem before heading to Diagonally, making a brief stop at the Knight Bus. We walked a bit through the shops, then hit Escape from Gringotts, which our youngest was just barely tall enough to ride. Everyone loved it! We exited the ride, then got in line at the main Ollivander’s location, watching the Gringott’s dragon breath fire while we waited. Once inside, our youngest was selected for the wand ceremony. We ended up buying his “chosen” wand, which as it turns out was the same as we had bought him earlier in the day.
Afterwards, having realized that his wand was “interactive” we walked around doing some of the interactive activities before sitting down for dinner at the Leaky Cauldron where I got a hot butterbeer, which turned out to be my favorite version of the drink by far. We decided to call it a day after that as the park was close to closing. The group averaged walking 7.5 miles that day.
Trip day 6, Thu 1/20: Relaxation day
This was the start of 3 days that weren’t fully planned out. We had options in mind though. Return to Disney or Universal, Sea World, Legoland, Kennedy Space Center, etc. We decided that since we had done everything that we wanted to do at Disney and Universal, that we’d take the day off and just relax. We slept in that morning, headed to IHOP for our first proper breakfast of the trip, checked out of the Hard Rock, shopped at City Walk, then drove to and checked in at Lake Buena Vista Resort. We went to lunch at Frankie Farrell’s Irish Pub & Grille, the attached pub, then headed to the pool. It was a bit chilly, and neither of the kids were tall enough to go down the slide, which was a big of a letdown as that’s the reason we chose that hotel. Everyone still managed to have fun, spending most of the time in the hot tub. We headed back to the room and played with our custom build droids, ate sweets from Honeydukes, and just lazed around. We ended up getting Pizza Hut for dinner, just because there was a location across the street.
Trip day 7, Fri 1/21: Space Coast day
Unbeknownst to our kids, I had been tracking an upcoming launch. I used to work for United Launch Alliance, and still have contacts there. Everything looked good for a 2:00PM T-0, so we loaded everyone up, and headed to Kennedy Space Center. We hit the KSC Visitor Center for a bit, most of the time spent in the Rocket Garden and Shuttle Atlantis exhibit, which was much better than what I was picturing. Everyone really enjoyed it.
We left there and headed to Grills Seafood Deck & Tiki Bar, which was my favorite restaurants from back when I had to travel to the Cape for work. Fortunately, they had shark kebabs, something that is frequently unavailable. While waiting on our food to come out, we were able to watch SpaceX’s ship Doug return to port with the captured payload fairings from a launch earlier in the week. We enjoyed our meal, make the quick 5-minute drive to the viewing location at South Gate, and sat down to wait for the launch of ULA’s Atlas V in the 511 configuration (first launch in that config) for the launch of GSSAP. I had warmed everyone that it could be delayed for a few hours, or even scrubbed for the day. To our good fortune, it launched right when the window opened, and we were able to view it for a decent amount of time before it disappeared into the clouds.
We then headed to the beach in the town of Cape Canaveral for some wading and searching for seashells, even though it was a bit chilly. We rinsed/brushed off the sand, hopped back in the rental, and headed back to the hotel stopping to take pictures of a wild peacock. On the drive to the hotel no one was hungry for dinner just yet. Once we got back, the wife and I decided to take the opportunity to have that date night that we had wanted to do earlier in the trip. We left the three of them to eat leftovers for dinner and rest up a bit while we headed to Disney Springs. We shopped a bit, was the launch of an Amphicar (I’d never seen this in person, and I’m a car nut), ate dinner at the Rainforest Café, then returned to the hotel. Gram and the boys only walked 3.5 miles, where the wife and I were just over 6 miles.
Trip day 8, Sat 1/22: Unexpected enjoyment
For our last day of the trip, I turned over the reigns to the boys. I gave them the options, and provided information about, returning to Disney or Universal, SeaWorld, Legoland, etc. They quickly decided on Legoland, which I had zero interest in but this trip was about them. We got a bit of a slow start, since we weren’t trying to rope drop anything, and the weather was cold and lightly raining.
We got to the park well after they opened. I grabbed a map to try and lay out the best path to take. We started by walking through the massive Lego displays of Daytona racetrack, VAB and the Shuttle on the launch pad, KSC Visitor Center, New York City, etc. We then headed to the only wooden rollercoaster of the trip, Coasterasaurus. The boys were surprised by how jerky it was but enjoyed it anyways. From there we headed to The Great Lego Race, which we discovered was closed, but actually opened right as we were about to walk away. The boys loved it, but my wife and I didn’t. The lack of banking on the turns was unsettling, as I know just how much force is required to make the car change direction with zero banking. After that we hit Wave Racers, staying surprisingly dry, then Technicycle.
We headed to Lego City Fire Academy next, which was the most surprising ride of the trip. I had never heard of anything like it, and we all really liked it. I’m sure the fact that we destroyed the other 3 teams had nothing to do with that lol. Afterwards, I took the Youngest to the Ford Jr. Driving School while the wife headed to the regular Driving School with the Eldest, which they both loved. From there I went on Flight School, which was fun but a bit disappointing because we thought the Youngest was tall enough to ride everything in the park and he really wanted to ride that one. The Eldest requested me to ride with him, and we both enjoyed it
We then started walking towards the park exit, stopping to ride Lost Kingdom Adventure, which was another unexpectedly fun ride. We then swung by The Dragon coaster, which was fun but the single bar restraint didn’t hold my Youngest in at all so I was holding him in place. We swung by the gift shop and then headed out. I later asked everyone what their favorite park was, and both boys said Legoland. This really surprised me as I didn’t think it compared at all do Disney or Universal. Maybe it was the fact that it was the most recent in their memory.
We stopped at Checkers for lunch, which is a food chain I hadn’t heard of before. The lack of kid’s meals was surprising, and the food wasn’t that good, so I’m not sad that we don’t have then in Denver. We made out way to the airport Hyatt where we checked in, went shopping in the terminal a bit more, grabbed fast food for dinner, and crashed.
Trip day 9, Sun 1/23: The end
That morning we woke up, checked the bags at the counter, tried to get everyone to eat, then boarded the plane home. We got our luggage but discovered Gram’s suitcase had lost a wheel. We trudged to the car where I discovered that I had left the headlights on. I’ve been driving 20+ years, and that’s the first time I’ve ever done that. We ended up having to wait over 30 minutes for parking lot assistance to bring a jump box. The rest of the trip was just an uneventful drive home.
Retrospective
All in all, it was a great trip that everyone really enjoyed. Aside from closed rides (I’m looking at you, Expedition Everest and Hogwarts Express!), we rode everything we wanted to except we never got Gram to ride It’s a Small World. I personally would’ve chosen SeaWorld over Legoland for the final day, but the boys enjoyed their selection. This choice was probably for the best as a lot of rides were down at SeaWorld, and the youngest was too short to ride most of them anyways.
I would’ve thought about buying Genie+ if we hadn’t planned on park hopping later in the day, but in the end I’m glad I didn’t do it. The days were frantic enough without trying to book and ride something on a set schedule.
Per recommendations on DISboard, I bought a subscription to the Lines App. While it was useful, it didn’t work with Genie+ or ILL, and every time I made a plan it would always start with the same ride. For instance, it would always tell me to use my early access to ride Star Tours but wait until around lunch time to ride Rise of the Resistance when the wait was expected to be 130 minutes. Because of that, I only used it occasionally to check actual wait times, which is something that I could’ve just done using the Disney app and keeping in mind that there is some time added.
I also didn’t stumble across anything that was available for purchase in the park that wasn’t available outside other that building a lightsaber and droids. I was told that the Starbucks “You are here” mugs were only available in the park, but we never actually found them inside the park either, so I can’t confirm that. Apparently, they sell out very fast.
Let me preface this with my pre-trip prep. We started planning on making the trip ~9 months before the actual date, at which point I went to work planning. I’m an engineer, so it’s what I do. I wanted to optimize the trip to go as smoothly as possibly, while balancing everyone’s enjoyment level with not burning people out. I eventually decided on 3 days in Disney World, 1 day in Universal, then 3 days at the tail of the trip to leave open for doing whatever. I believe this worked out incredibly well, although if it wasn’t for doing a VIP Tour on Day 1 at Disney, we would have definitely needed 4 days there to see and do everything we managed to fit in.
Planning during Covid wasn’t easy. I’d ask friends/family about their trips, and they’d recommend things like FastPass, merchandise sent to hotel room, etc; basically, things that I knew weren’t possible any more. It was a constant battle to find advise, then check the date of such advice, and then verify if it was still accurate or not. It was very frustrating, but I knew that it was worth it as the trip wouldn’t have been nearly as fulfilling if I hadn’t done the research. My largest regret in that process is that I only stumbled on DISboard a mere week before we left on the trip. So many questions could’ve been answered faster and more accurately that what ended up happening. Regardless, the trip was amazing, and I know everyone will cherish the memories for the rest of their lives.
Trip day 1, Sat 1/15: Traveling to Orlando
Our flight was a bit delayed leaving Denver, but we made up some time in the air and only landed ~10 min late in Orlando at 1:45PM. Went down to grab luggage, fully expecting to see someone from Ultimate Town Car there greeting us with a sign, as we had a reservation with them to take us to our hotel. I was really looking forward to seeing the driver with a name board this since my last name is Mears, which as I’m sure all of you know is a very popular transportation company in the area. There was no guy with a sign, but I received a call and was instructed to call them once we had our bags. I did this, told the guy which door we were at, and waited. And waited. All told, we waited almost 30 minutes before the driver showed up.
The trip to Animal Kingdom Jambo House went well. I asked a few questions, we talked about a skywriter who I believe was writing “Find Jesus. Don’t Hate” but it was apparently pretty windy as his work was quickly blowing away. Checked in with the front desk at Jambo, and were told that our room wasn’t ready, but they were sending someone down from club level services (?) to bring us up to their longue area. This was news to me, as I thought we had just booked a 1-bedroom suite with savanna view, but apparently we got club level as well.
As we were making our way to the club level longue, we discovered that we left our magic bands at home. Arg. We actually gave them as Christmas presents to everyone, as that is when we revealed that we were going on this trip. We even joked about the fact that we would probably forget them. Well, we did. I ran to the gift shop and grabbed 5 new ones and got them programed. We waited around enjoying the free snacks and drinks until our room was ready. I really wish they had Yuengling, as that is a forbidden fruit for us (can’t get it on my side of the Mississippi River), but beggars can’t be choosers. I also wish that the club level longue had a view of the savanna, as that is the reason we were at the resort, but as it is it just has a view of the hotel atrium. During this time, hotel Cast members brough out an ice cream dish for the Youngest’s birthday, which we all helped in eating.
Our room was ready soon thereafter. We headed there, got settled in, and enjoyed the view until it was time to leave for our 5PM reservation at Boma – Flavors of Africa. We ate and ate and ate. Everything was amazing there! When I was making reservations, I was trying to book at Sanaa for the savanna views while dining, but the earliest I could get in (even though I tried booking right as the reservation window opened for me) was 8:20PM. I figured that would feel like 6:20 to us, so we’d do a late lunch at Boma and then dinner at Sanaa. Well, everyone was so stuffed from Boma that we decided to cancel our Sanaa reservations. Afterwards we went in the pool that was a bit too chilly if I’m honest, although it was only ~50°F out. We played for a few hours, then headed to bed.
Trip day 2, Sun 1/16: VIP Tour day
We woke up early the next day to my alarm app blaring “Circle of Life”, since I’m funny like that. MAAAAAAA SEVENYAAAA BABAETSIAVA!!!!! Despite my wonderful humor, I found that waking everyone was a struggle as apparently I’m the only one who is a morning person. I was hopeful that the excitement of what was coming would help motivate everyone, but it was difficult to get everyone moving. We ate on some grab-and-go breakfast items that I brought with; mostly cereal/nutrigrain/granola bars.
We rode the shuttle to Magic Kingdom, while keeping an eye on the weather reports. It was sprinkling a decent amount, so we busted out the ponchos. We got to the entrance a bit after 8AM. We walked through almost every shop, trying to wait out the storm. We were glad we did, because at one point the sprinkle had increased into a rain so heavy that you couldn’t see across Main Street USA. Soon it was almost 9AM, the time that we were meeting up with our VIP tour guide, Liza. She was amazing! We introduced ourselves, took off our ponchos as the rain had stopped, and in short order we were on our way. The reason that we wanted to meet her in the park instead of her picking us up at the lodge was because we wanted our sons to get a grandiose entrance as their first Disney experience instead of entering through a cast entrance. I’m glad we did it this way, as it really helped build up the magic for the kids.
We headed straight to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which was going to be the first coaster than either of my son’s had ever ridden. At the youngest’s request, I rode with him while my wife with the eldest. Youngest didn’t enjoy the ride while it was going but changed his tune later when he realized he was safe. However, my eldest loved it instantly. We found out that he laughs hysterically while on roller coasters which was infections in making his riding partner laugh equally as hard, if not more so.
The second ride we went on was Space Mountain. Youngest was too short, so he and Gram sat that one out. Eldest didn’t like that one nearly as much at first, but more on that later. I believe it was because he was in the front seat and because of that had no warning that the ride was going to change direction. From there we hit Peter Pan’s Flight which everyone loved, Haunted Mansion which nobody seemed to really enjoy the visual effects, then Jungle Cruise which the kids liked the visuals while the adults liked the humor, then Pirates of the Caribbean which was another ride met with meh reaction. We were going to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, my childhood favorite from Disneyland, but it was temporarily closed that entire morning.
From there we were driven to Epcot where everyone loved everything we rode. We started with Test Track (the one ride I wish we could’ve done again later since Youngest loved it so much), Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Soarin’ Around the World (Grandma’s favorite as she had been to 9 of the locations in person), and Mission Space: Green. The wife and I had planned on doing Mission Space: Orange on a later date, but that fell through. We were warned that Mission Space: Green wasn’t a great use of VIP Tour time, but we decided to do it anyways since doing so meant that we had done every ride in Epcot so we wouldn’t “have to” return to that park later.
From there we rode to Hollywood Studios, where I wanted to really make use of the VIP Tour time. I asked about Star Tours, but Liza advised against it since the line is typically short. We started with eating at Ronto Roasters, which were really good. We then rode Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, which was really fun. I went in blind, not knowing that it was an interactive experience. Walking around the outside and inside of the Falcon was awesome! Liza advised us which roles we’d be best at. Wife and I were pilots, the boys were gunners, and Gram and Liza were engineers. Come to think of it, I’m not entirely sure what the engineer role actually did. Anyways, from there we did Rise of the Resistance. Again, I went in totally blind, and I’m so glad that I did. Great ride, although I’d never wait 190 minutes (the quoted wait time when we rode) for it. The little steps along the way to the actual ride were highly enjoyable. It almost felt like 2 or 3 rides instead of just one and I’m not ashamed to admit that seeing Poe’s X-wing made me grin like an idiot.
We rode Slinky Dog Dash after that, which everyone loved. Then proceeded on to Toy Story Mania which we all enjoyed except the youngest who didn’t really get a hang of aiming. After that we did Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway which we all loved, then on The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror which the boys enjoyed but didn’t want to do again later. From there we parted ways with Liza, but not before she bought everyone ice cream. In hindsight, and I should’ve asked this before, but apparently VIP Tours round up to the nearest hour. We ended the tour at around 8.5 hours but were charged the full 9 hours. Had I known I would’ve tacked on another ride, although the one I wanted to repeat, Rise of the Resistance, she said we couldn’t do over. I could’ve come up with something though, since we were paying for it anyways.
From there, we headed to our 6:40PM reservation at 50’s Prime Time Café, where everything was amazing. After that, we wandered around a bit, the wife and I hitting up our 8:10PM reservations at Oga’s Cantina for a quick drink and ended up closing the park with another ride on Slinky Dog. All told, we rode 16 rides on the 8.5-hour tour and walked a total of 12.5 miles that day. We were all tired, but I am really proud of how everyone held up.
Trip Day 3, Mon 1/17 MLK day: Venturing out on our own
I went to bed the night before wondering if I should do Genie+ or it if would add stress and complexity to our day. We had already ridden the major attractions but had a few that we wanted to hit again. The adults talked it over, and we decided not to do that. I had really been looking forward to the FastPass system, but obviously that is dead and gone now, and messing with trying to fit rides into our schedules at a set time wasn’t appealing. That said, we did want to ride Rise of the Resistance again, so I did buy Individual Lightning Lane passes for 10:05AM. I could’ve gotten them earlier, but I wanted time to ride during Early Access and early in the day before the crowds grew.
The morning routine went the same as the day before, although this time I woke everyone to the “Star Wars (Main Theme)”. Again, it was a bit of a struggle to get everyone awake, a quick bite to eat, etc. We started the day at Hollywood Studios, and used our early access to ride Slinky Dog Dash. The line was only 20 minutes, but even at that the boys were asking why we couldn’t just cut the line like we had the day before. I was worried that they’d get spoiled being on the VIP Tour the day before, but they fairly easily came to terms with waiting. I brought little vials of bubbles, some popping toys, and various other fidget things, so they were entertained anytime we were in a longer line.
After Slinky, we were going to head to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway RR, but on the walk by Toy Story Mania I saw the wait was only 5 minutes, so we decided on the spot to ride that again. We headed to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway RR afterwards and waited ~40 minutes before we got on. From there we headed to our ILL time at Rise of the Resistance. We were fortunate to get sent down the other hallway, as well as ride the other car, from what we had done the day before. While this wasn’t a massive difference, it was nice to see everything that ride had to offer. Afterwards, we headed to Star Tours where we waited ~25 minutes. Everyone loved this one, although not as much as the other Star Wars rides.
After that, I headed to visited Savi for my 12:05 appointment to build a light saber (no one else wanted to), then 4 of us built droids at our 12:40 appointment. Unfortunately, they were out of lightsaber bags and one sleeve piece that I was wanting to build a Power and Control saber based on, so I went with Elemental Nature. Similarly, the Droid Depot was out of their backpacks, the blue R-series body, and the black personality chip. We made do and are happy with our purchases despite those setbacks. We ate at Docking Bay 7 which was fun, but the seats weren’t the most comfortable. We then headed to Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy, which my youngest loved, before we left the park.
We returned to the hotel to drop off our goodies as the option to send merchandise back to your hotel room was not available at that time. We rested a bit, then headed out to Animal Kingdom park. I had planned on us riding DINOSAUR and the Kilimanjaro Safari, but didn’t realize that everything in that park shut down really early. Expedition Everest was one ride that I was really looking forward to, but it was down for maintenance, so I knew that one wasn’t going to happen. Still, all we were able to do that afternoon was shop for a bit, then head to our youngest’s 5th birthday dinner celebration at Tusker House Restaurant for our 6:55PM reservation. While the character interactions were cool, it almost happened too frequently. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Donald twice each. I also wasn’t prepared for the family style food presentation, which was met with mixed enjoyment. I made the reservation based on the character experience and failed to look beyond that.
We left the park after 8, and everyone was tired. The wife and I had planned on having a date night that night at Epcot during their extended hours, but both of us were exhausted. We “only” walked 8.2 miles that day, but when we returned to the hotel, we found that my wife had sizable blisters on both feet. To her credit, she was a trooper the rest of the trip and never let it get in the way of anything. That said, I feel that we pretty much squandered that 2nd afternoon/evening as we couldn’t do anything in Animal Kingdom other than eat. This is the one part of the trip that I would do differently if I could go back in time.
Trip Day 4, Tue 1/18: Last day at Disney
We started the day exactly the same, except this time to a “Heigh-Ho” alarm. We drugged through the morning routine, again skipping on buying Genie+ but instead getting ILL for Seven Dwarfs at 10:05AM since we were starting at Magic Kingdom. We also had to check out of Animal Kingdom Lodge, which was a whole other level of crazy. We ended up dropping off the luggage at Bell Services, then hopped on a shuttle.
The plan was to use our Early Access to ride Big Thunder Mt RR as it was closed on our previous day at Magic Kingdom. Well, I somehow missed on the fact that Early Access didn’t include Frontierland or Adventure land. I briefly thought about changing the plan to head to Seven Dwarf’s, but I saw that the crowd for that was already massive. I then thought about heading to Space Mountain, but since the eldest didn’t like it on his first time I didn’t think he’d enjoy it the second. We decided to wait it out and rope drop Big Thunder Mt RR alongside people who didn’t have Early Access.
We waited in the cold for ~35 minutes. During this time, work spread that Seven Dwarfs was temporarily closed, so a lot of them were going to be heading over to Big Thunder Mt RR. Once the line started moving, we were quickly passed by a lot of people as our group wasn’t very fast. We had just passed the entrance to Pirates, when word came down from in front of us that Big Thunder Mt RR was down as well. We scrambled and decided to ride Pirates again, since the line was short, and we were literally right there. Once there, we talked about what to do. The boys wanted to ride The Magic Carpets of Aladdin, so we hopped in line for that after we exited Pirate. Once we were in line and boxed in, the Disney app showed that Seven Dwarfs had just opened. I had thought about heading that way instead of riding Carpets but decided against it. Hindsight, we could’ve ridden Seven Dwarfs with only a 5-10 minute wait, which is unheard of. Oh well.
After Magic Carpets, we headed towards Seven Dwarfs. The plan was to ride It’s a Small World (Gram’s historical favorite) then Prince Charming Regal Carousel, but the line for Small World was over 30 minutes at that point so we headed straight to the Carousel. While in line for that, the app notified me that Big Thunder Mt RR had just opened. Had we not been in line, we could’ve walked there and waited ~10-15 minutes to ride that one. 0 for 2 on that front.
The Carousel took surprisingly long, so by the time we were off there wasn’t enough time to comfortably walk to Big Thunder then make it back to Seven Dwarfs before our hour-long ILL time slot was over. We took the time to sit and rest for a sec, bathroom/snack break, etc. We showed up a few minutes early for Seven Dwarfs, and to my surprise our passes were valid. We rode it again, and everyone loved it. It seems that the youngest developed a fondness for coasters after his first one. Slinky was still his favorite, but he said Seven Dwarfs is his second favorite.
After that we headed straight to Big Thunder Mt RR, but the line was already sizable. We waited 45 minutes, and it instantly because everyone’s favorite. I had forgotten how long that ride is, and how much I love it. We then took another breather while eating Dole Whips as I had to figure out how I was going to pick up a rental car. I had reserved a car when I booked the trip through AAA, but I had no clue how/when/where I was supposed to grab it. I was originally told that I’d be picked up from the hotel, but no one there knew anything about that. I had to scramble and call 3 different phone numbers for Alamo before I finally got the right one. I made arrangements with them to be picked up at Ticket and Transport while the rest of the family stayed in Magic Kingdom. The plan was to meet up at Animal Kingdom park right when we could “hop” to that park at 2pm. To my surprise, our eldest wanted to ride Space Mountain again! I figured while he did that, the youngest could ride Speedway while I headed out to grab the car.
While walking to Tomorrowland, we stumbled on the 12:20 parade, which we stood and watched. The line for Space Mountain was estimated to be 50 minutes, but it ended up taking well over an hour. While that was going on, I had to figure out how to get to Ticket and Transport. I found out that I could either ride the monorail or hop on the ferry. As I was exiting Magic Kingdom, I passed Stitch greeting people on a stage, as well as the Winnie the Pooh parade. After I walked out of the park, I saw that a ferry had just started offloading, so I headed that way. While boarding, we were told to “stay on the left side as there is some nature on the dock”. Turns out “nature” is code for a 6’ long snake. That excitement aside, the ferry trip went well. Once I arrived at the other end, I overheard that the monorail had just gone down, so I fortunately made the right decision.
I met with the driver from Alamo, he took me to the Alamo hub, I grabbed the car, drove to Animal Kingdom Lodge, left the car, and hopped the shuttle to Animal Kingdom park. I got there well before the rest of my family, so I thought I’d head in and do some shopping. Well, I didn’t realize that I was before the 2pm time that park hopping starts, so my entry was rejected. I had to sit and wait until then, at which point I entered, shopped for a bit, then left to meet the rest of my family who got there at 3.
We entered the park, took some pictures, happened upon the macaw show, then made out way to Kilimanjaro Safari. We rode that, then grabbed a quick late lunch at the food cart right at the exit while watching a sky writer write the same “Find Jesus. Don’t hate” message in the sky. From there we walked to DINOSAUR, did some shopping, and headed out. We rode the shuttle to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, grabbed the rental and luggage, then headed to the next stop on the trip. Most of the family walked 7 miles, but I actually did 8.5 miles.
Trip day 5, Wed 1/19: Universal Studios
For this part of the trip, we were supposed to stay at the Hard Rock in a 2-bedroom King Suite with garden view. What we were actually given was a room with 2 queen beds that was next door to a suite with a king since bed. Not what we had booked, but it ended up working out. The night before I was informed that while the hotel room key acted as our Early Park Admission as well as Universal Express Unlimited, it didn’t actually contain our ticket. I tried to get tickets sorted in the hotel but was unsuccessful, so I had to walk to guest services in City Walk to get them. Not a major issue, but not something that I wasn’t planning on doing. I’m just glad that I found that out the night before we were supposed to go in the park instead of being turned around at the gate when trying to get in.
My original plan for the morning was to head to Universal’s Islands of Adventure and go straight to Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure (longest ride name ever?). However, that wasn’t one of the available rides for Early Park Admission, so we decided to split the group and have the youngest stay with Gram in Suess Landing riding Cat and the Hat, High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train, and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish while the other 3 of us headed to Velicocoaster. I wasn’t sure how the eldest was going to do on that ride, since that is by far the most extreme ride he’s ever been on (same for my wife and I), but he took it like a champ. We got off and I saw that the wait was only 5 minutes, but neither him nor my wife wanted to ride it again so quickly, so we headed to Hogsmeade and wait in line for Hagrid’s to open. In hindsight, we should’ve rode it at least once more before leaving as later in the day the Eldest asked to ride it again but we didn’t have the time to do so.
We probably ended up waiting ~45 minutes for Hagrid’s which isn’t terrible for that ride but longer than I was hoping it’d take that early in the morning. We all ended up loving it and it dethroned Big Thunder Mt RR as the favorite ride for my wife and eldest. We grabbed some butterbeers and joined up with the other part of our party. We were going to head to Harry Potter’s Forbidden Journey, but it was down so we went in the Express lane for Flight of the Hippogriff. The line for this was surprisingly long at 30 minutes, but that was because everyone who was going to Forbidden Journey went there instead. It was a fun ride, but not one that anyone wanted to do again if we had the time (we didn’t). We started got off the ride and tried to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, the Hogwarts Express was down for the day, so we couldn’t ride that. However, as we were talking, Forbidden Journey opened! This was amazing timing, as we were literally 50’ away from the entrance. I had forgotten that our youngest was too short for this one as well, so he and Gram sat this one out. The other three of us literally just walked on, rode it, then we swapped kid watching duties and sent Gram with the Eldest who wanted to ride it again. My timing luck had finally turned around.
We went into the Ollivander’s branch location in Hogsmeade, Dervish and Banges, where I was hopeful that one of our kids would be chosen for the wand choosing ceremony, but at the last second a cute ~7-year-old girl in full Gryffindor attire walked in, and she was obviously chosen. After that show, we proceeded into the very cramped wand shop. We were disappointed with the wand selections, as it seemed like they only had a handful of wands that weren’t character wards from the books/movies. The boys ended up getting a wand, but the adults left empty handed.
We then headed to the Three Broomsticks for lunch. The restaurant itself was amazing, but the ordering/waiting for food experience was pretty bad. It took forever, even though there were tons of empty tables. We got our food, the wife and I being disappointed that we couldn’t get alcohol along with it, but instead had to go to the bar on the other side of the restaurant. She ended up getting a pumpkin juice that we all tried and agreed that it didn’t taste like much, while I got another butterbeer. Once we were seated, I walked to the bar and bought the wife and I a Triple, which is the new name for the Deathly Hallows that they apparently can’t sell by that name anymore. It was good, but we are both fans of black and tan, so I knew we’d like it.
After lunch, we returned to the hotel for a bit before hoping on the City Walk ferry, having previously walked to Islands of Adventure, to head to Universal Studios Florida. Once there, we hit Despicable Me Minion Mayhem before heading to Diagonally, making a brief stop at the Knight Bus. We walked a bit through the shops, then hit Escape from Gringotts, which our youngest was just barely tall enough to ride. Everyone loved it! We exited the ride, then got in line at the main Ollivander’s location, watching the Gringott’s dragon breath fire while we waited. Once inside, our youngest was selected for the wand ceremony. We ended up buying his “chosen” wand, which as it turns out was the same as we had bought him earlier in the day.
Afterwards, having realized that his wand was “interactive” we walked around doing some of the interactive activities before sitting down for dinner at the Leaky Cauldron where I got a hot butterbeer, which turned out to be my favorite version of the drink by far. We decided to call it a day after that as the park was close to closing. The group averaged walking 7.5 miles that day.
Trip day 6, Thu 1/20: Relaxation day
This was the start of 3 days that weren’t fully planned out. We had options in mind though. Return to Disney or Universal, Sea World, Legoland, Kennedy Space Center, etc. We decided that since we had done everything that we wanted to do at Disney and Universal, that we’d take the day off and just relax. We slept in that morning, headed to IHOP for our first proper breakfast of the trip, checked out of the Hard Rock, shopped at City Walk, then drove to and checked in at Lake Buena Vista Resort. We went to lunch at Frankie Farrell’s Irish Pub & Grille, the attached pub, then headed to the pool. It was a bit chilly, and neither of the kids were tall enough to go down the slide, which was a big of a letdown as that’s the reason we chose that hotel. Everyone still managed to have fun, spending most of the time in the hot tub. We headed back to the room and played with our custom build droids, ate sweets from Honeydukes, and just lazed around. We ended up getting Pizza Hut for dinner, just because there was a location across the street.
Trip day 7, Fri 1/21: Space Coast day
Unbeknownst to our kids, I had been tracking an upcoming launch. I used to work for United Launch Alliance, and still have contacts there. Everything looked good for a 2:00PM T-0, so we loaded everyone up, and headed to Kennedy Space Center. We hit the KSC Visitor Center for a bit, most of the time spent in the Rocket Garden and Shuttle Atlantis exhibit, which was much better than what I was picturing. Everyone really enjoyed it.
We left there and headed to Grills Seafood Deck & Tiki Bar, which was my favorite restaurants from back when I had to travel to the Cape for work. Fortunately, they had shark kebabs, something that is frequently unavailable. While waiting on our food to come out, we were able to watch SpaceX’s ship Doug return to port with the captured payload fairings from a launch earlier in the week. We enjoyed our meal, make the quick 5-minute drive to the viewing location at South Gate, and sat down to wait for the launch of ULA’s Atlas V in the 511 configuration (first launch in that config) for the launch of GSSAP. I had warmed everyone that it could be delayed for a few hours, or even scrubbed for the day. To our good fortune, it launched right when the window opened, and we were able to view it for a decent amount of time before it disappeared into the clouds.
We then headed to the beach in the town of Cape Canaveral for some wading and searching for seashells, even though it was a bit chilly. We rinsed/brushed off the sand, hopped back in the rental, and headed back to the hotel stopping to take pictures of a wild peacock. On the drive to the hotel no one was hungry for dinner just yet. Once we got back, the wife and I decided to take the opportunity to have that date night that we had wanted to do earlier in the trip. We left the three of them to eat leftovers for dinner and rest up a bit while we headed to Disney Springs. We shopped a bit, was the launch of an Amphicar (I’d never seen this in person, and I’m a car nut), ate dinner at the Rainforest Café, then returned to the hotel. Gram and the boys only walked 3.5 miles, where the wife and I were just over 6 miles.
Trip day 8, Sat 1/22: Unexpected enjoyment
For our last day of the trip, I turned over the reigns to the boys. I gave them the options, and provided information about, returning to Disney or Universal, SeaWorld, Legoland, etc. They quickly decided on Legoland, which I had zero interest in but this trip was about them. We got a bit of a slow start, since we weren’t trying to rope drop anything, and the weather was cold and lightly raining.
We got to the park well after they opened. I grabbed a map to try and lay out the best path to take. We started by walking through the massive Lego displays of Daytona racetrack, VAB and the Shuttle on the launch pad, KSC Visitor Center, New York City, etc. We then headed to the only wooden rollercoaster of the trip, Coasterasaurus. The boys were surprised by how jerky it was but enjoyed it anyways. From there we headed to The Great Lego Race, which we discovered was closed, but actually opened right as we were about to walk away. The boys loved it, but my wife and I didn’t. The lack of banking on the turns was unsettling, as I know just how much force is required to make the car change direction with zero banking. After that we hit Wave Racers, staying surprisingly dry, then Technicycle.
We headed to Lego City Fire Academy next, which was the most surprising ride of the trip. I had never heard of anything like it, and we all really liked it. I’m sure the fact that we destroyed the other 3 teams had nothing to do with that lol. Afterwards, I took the Youngest to the Ford Jr. Driving School while the wife headed to the regular Driving School with the Eldest, which they both loved. From there I went on Flight School, which was fun but a bit disappointing because we thought the Youngest was tall enough to ride everything in the park and he really wanted to ride that one. The Eldest requested me to ride with him, and we both enjoyed it
We then started walking towards the park exit, stopping to ride Lost Kingdom Adventure, which was another unexpectedly fun ride. We then swung by The Dragon coaster, which was fun but the single bar restraint didn’t hold my Youngest in at all so I was holding him in place. We swung by the gift shop and then headed out. I later asked everyone what their favorite park was, and both boys said Legoland. This really surprised me as I didn’t think it compared at all do Disney or Universal. Maybe it was the fact that it was the most recent in their memory.
We stopped at Checkers for lunch, which is a food chain I hadn’t heard of before. The lack of kid’s meals was surprising, and the food wasn’t that good, so I’m not sad that we don’t have then in Denver. We made out way to the airport Hyatt where we checked in, went shopping in the terminal a bit more, grabbed fast food for dinner, and crashed.
Trip day 9, Sun 1/23: The end
That morning we woke up, checked the bags at the counter, tried to get everyone to eat, then boarded the plane home. We got our luggage but discovered Gram’s suitcase had lost a wheel. We trudged to the car where I discovered that I had left the headlights on. I’ve been driving 20+ years, and that’s the first time I’ve ever done that. We ended up having to wait over 30 minutes for parking lot assistance to bring a jump box. The rest of the trip was just an uneventful drive home.
Retrospective
All in all, it was a great trip that everyone really enjoyed. Aside from closed rides (I’m looking at you, Expedition Everest and Hogwarts Express!), we rode everything we wanted to except we never got Gram to ride It’s a Small World. I personally would’ve chosen SeaWorld over Legoland for the final day, but the boys enjoyed their selection. This choice was probably for the best as a lot of rides were down at SeaWorld, and the youngest was too short to ride most of them anyways.
I would’ve thought about buying Genie+ if we hadn’t planned on park hopping later in the day, but in the end I’m glad I didn’t do it. The days were frantic enough without trying to book and ride something on a set schedule.
Per recommendations on DISboard, I bought a subscription to the Lines App. While it was useful, it didn’t work with Genie+ or ILL, and every time I made a plan it would always start with the same ride. For instance, it would always tell me to use my early access to ride Star Tours but wait until around lunch time to ride Rise of the Resistance when the wait was expected to be 130 minutes. Because of that, I only used it occasionally to check actual wait times, which is something that I could’ve just done using the Disney app and keeping in mind that there is some time added.
I also didn’t stumble across anything that was available for purchase in the park that wasn’t available outside other that building a lightsaber and droids. I was told that the Starbucks “You are here” mugs were only available in the park, but we never actually found them inside the park either, so I can’t confirm that. Apparently, they sell out very fast.
