Oops, We Forgot to Leave Our Weather at Home! A Fantastic Festival of the Arts 2025 TR! (RL Update 3/31!!)

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Hello and welcome everyone to my latest trip report! Thank you all for joining in on the fun!

This trip we headed down to Disney for a short trip to Festival of the Arts (FArts). Our trip this time was January 21st-26th, and we stayed at the BWI.

I’ve been to this FArts once before and LOVED it, it’s my favorite festival now, so I couldn’t wait to show it off to my mom.

Speaking of my mom, I guess it’s time for introductions!

For this trip it was once again a mother daughter trip.

This is my mom, Carol, and she is my favorite travel buddy. We travel so well together, and I love making all these memories with her.

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She is a semi-retired teacher, so we typically only can travel when she has breaks. This trip was actually during the final exam period for her school system, and since her exam was over early, it was the perfect time for a quick trip to Disney!

Next up there is me, Debbie!

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I’ll be your narrator for this trip report and I cannot wait to get into all the details!

Now, I had been raving about how amazing the weather is in Disney in January to my mom for the past two years since the few times I’ve been in January it’s been glorious. I’m sure you can see where this is going.

Well, turns out the gross northern winter weather decided to follow us down to Florida. Guys, it SNOWED in Florida while we were there, and actual snow, not snoap! Granted, not in Disney, but still, that’s how wild the weather was this week.

So if you ever wanted to know what it would be like if Walt Disney had decided to build Disney World above the Mason Dixon line, you’re in for a treat because I’m going to tell you ALL about it.

Also, there were SO many options for report titles for this trip report. We had so many hilarious things happen and then of course there was the weather that inspired some too. Some others that were on the table:

"How to Give Yourself a Black Eye at Disney" (of course there is a story behind this, we’ll get to that later of course)

"Making History at Disney!" (Because we seem to always go during historic weather events, snow in Florida? Check! Rainiest day on record? Check!...ya’ll might want to find out when we’re going since there’s a solid chance some wild weather will happen and it’s a great time to not visit!)

"I Guess They Call it FARTS for a Reason…" (Yes, this is another story time for later)

Anyways, I cannot wait to get into this TR! Even with the less than perfect weather, we had the most amazing time.

Now on with the show!​

Joining in a little late….but always a fan of your trip reports!

Brenda

 

[VAtink]

My sister and I did it a couple of years ago on our 4th of July trip. We had a great time. There were some thunderstorms that rolled through right as the park was closing to day guests, so it delayed the start by about an hour, but after that it was smooth sailing.

We had never done the water parks before, and honestly that was the way to do it. No real waits, free Mickey bars, and not in the blistering sun!

Count one vote to do it from me!

Ohhh, good to know! Thanks!

 

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Joining in a little late….but always a fan of your trip reports!

Brenda

, thanks for joining in on the fun!

 

[marisas1011]

Happy weekend everyone! I have another crowdsourcing question for you all. The H20 glow night schedule was recently released, and there is one that falls during our trip, and we are debating if we should go. Has anyone been and would you recommend it? Our original plan for the day it falls was to do the four park challenge again, and I had considered making it a five park challenge (which I really want to do one of these trips), but my mom quickly shot that idea down since it would be too much for her. So our options for that day are either the 4 park challenge and ending the day at MK with the fireworks dessert party, or doing two parks, resting, then H20 Glow Nights that evening.

Anyone have any thoughts?!?! We are sooooo torn on what to do!

We've done this a few times and have loved it.

 

[VAtink]

Happy Monday everyone. So I totally failed at trip report writing this weekend, oops! But I had a good excuse...sort of. It was GORGEOUS here, like the nicest weekend we've had in months. Plus it was peak cherry blossom blooms this weekend, so of course my friends and I had to go explore and see pretty blooms and just enjoy being outside in the sun and warmth.

We decided to avoid all the tourists downtown and head somewhere we've never been before to check out the cherry trees and other flowers and whatnot...the National Arboretum! Guys, this place is massive and really really cool! I can't believe I've never been before. It's actually something I'm really bad at, I've lived in the DC area for 20 years now yet rarely go do all the stuff DC has to offer. I really only do that stuff when I have people visiting me. I need to get better at that.

Anyways, we ended up strolling around the arboretum for hours, ended up walking about 5 miles around it, which by Disney standards doesn't seem like much, but for a park in DC a 5 mile stroll without backtracking is pretty impressive! There were just so many trails through the woods and there were so many things in bloom that we couldn't stop exploring! Being me, of course I took a ton of pictures.









They even had a self-guided cherry blossom trail with various types of cherry trees! You can see the number in the picture below, that's one of the trees on the trail, and is the same variety I have in my back yard!











So that was a fantastic way to spend part of the day. BUT we weren't done yet! After our fun in nature, we decided to head back over to Alexandria to visit the newly opened Swiftie pop-up bar! Yes, we have a Taylor Swift bar now.

It was actually really cool, and had really good food and drinks! Plus, they had friendship bracelet making kits!









Overall it was an amazing weekend, buuuut not so great for getting this TR updated. Oh well, I'll try to get back into it this week! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

 

[VAtink]

We've done this a few times and have loved it.

Thank you! So far I've been seeing a lot of good reviews for it.

 

[Stacybaeasm]

What an amazing weekend!!! The trees are beautiful. We were just talking about the cherry blossoms in my class last week. I said I wanted to get to DC to visit, but for reasons I won't go into on the Dis...probably best I don't get too close.

and that Taylor Swift pop up bar??!! What fun. Now I want to make friendship bracelets while eating and drinking. But I feel you on not doing all the things in the area you live. I've been in VA for 3 years now and have done...nothing. Maybe I'll get out and explore this summer. I hear there is a safari park close to here.

 

[emilyann704]

Yeah, I may do that if they change it again. Right now I think I'll stick with this flight, but we'll see. There are a few other flights with other airlines that are around the same time as my original flight, so I may change later.

Once you "accept" the change (or they may say you automatically accept it after a certain amount of time) you can't change it for free -- just keep that in mind.