Mini Disney World Getaway
We’ve been staying with relatives in Florida but had made arrangements to meet some friends from Pennsylvania for dinner during their trip. Although it was very last minute, I was able to snag one night in a studio at Boardwalk. We decided to extend our stay by one day and was able to book a room at an annual passholder rate for an additional night at Coronado Springs.
We’re more than 2 hours driving time away from Disney so left very early in the morning and arrived shortly after Magic Kingdom opening. Although we had noted an early arrival on our Boardwalk reservation, we didn’t expect the room to be ready for quite some time so drove directly to the park. We had purchased annual passes months ago but hadn’t been to Disney since the end of 2016 so the passes were waiting for us at will call. With our new passes in hand, we boarded the monorail and headed to the Magic Kingdom. Since we had already gone through security at the Ticket and Transportation Center, we were able to go directly to the entrance to the park.
The park was quite enjoyable for the first couple of hours. After that, the masses descended upon the park and it was very crowded. We had a few fastpasses and also did some other rides during our time in the park. Splash Mountain is closed for refurbishment and Hall of Presidents has not re-opened since the last presidential election. Big Thunder was down for part of the day. We did have a fastpass for 7 Dwarves but it was down when we went to use the fastpasses. We were told we could return to that ride later in the day or could use the fastpass on most of the other rides in the park. We were warned that, if we used the fastpass option on any other ride, we would lose the Dwarves fastpass. We checked several times while we ate lunch but the ride remained down. We attempted to go on the People Mover (which had a line of its own) but that went down while we were in the line. With Dwarves still down, we gave up and left the park.
We had been notified that our room was ready by mid-morning. We drove over to Boardwalk and located our room. Since we were going out to dinner, my husband decided to take a shower. Problem – no hot water. Maintenance was called and confirmed we had no hot water. He spoke to his boss and told us the issue was being worked on. He told us we might have hot water in another hour but this could not be guaranteed. My husband called the desk and was transferred to someone from the vacation club to assist. He had an extensive conversation with her and, by the end of the conversation, not only had we been provided another room with hot, running water but she also canceled our Coronado Springs reservation, provided us with two consecutive nights at Boardwalk, and upgraded us to a one bedroom accommodation!! Disney Magic at its best!!
Once in our new location, we were both able to shower and change. We then took a bus to Disney Springs, met up with our friends and had a lovely dinner with them at Paddlefish.
The next day, we bussed over to Animal Kingdom where I had made several fastpasses. In addition to our fastpasses, we went to It’s Tough to Be a Bug and walked the trail with the tigers. Our first fastpass was for the Safari and the second for Expedition:Everest. Our third fastpass was for the river ride in the Avatar Section. While walking along one of the pathways, a flock of macaws flew overhead. It was a pretty amazing sight but we began to think they had somehow escaped but we found this was not the case. We had lunch at Flametree Barbecue. While walking along the trail, we stopped to talk with a woman who is there on the college program. She told us they release the macaws to fly about and they return home for their treats. She said, since they are larger birds, the hawks don’t bother them. I really enjoyed the new river ride. Of note, the flight ride in Avatar had a wait time listed as 240 minutes!!!!
I wanted to wander through Epcot so we bussed from Animal Kingdom to Epcot. Some muscles in my leg were really bothering me so we took the boat over to Germany. From there, we walked to Italy and stopped into Tutto Gusto for cocktails. After cocktails, we walked back to Boardwalk, very thankful to the person who made our second day stay there possible!!
That evening, we had dinner reservations at California Grill which I had just made the evening before. We took the bus over to the Magic Kingdom (we were the only two on the bus) and found that changes in security meant we needed to go through security before we could walk over to the Contemporary. We also noted a security checkpoint further down the walkway that folks walking from the Contemporary to the Magic Kingdom would need to be screened.
We had a lovely dinner at California Grill. After dinner, we monorailed back to the Magic Kingdom and then took the bus back to Boardwalk. For this trip, we had one other passenger.
In the morning, we packed up and put our belongings in the car. From there, we drove over to the Magic Kingdom. I was able to pick up two fastpasses for the morning – Big Thunder and Jungle Cruise. We got on a few other rides as well, including the People Mover which was now functioning. I was able to book an early lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern.
After lunch, we headed back to the parking lot and made the return trip to our relatives’ home.
