Orlando Trip Report: Week 2

Welcome back to week two of my Orlando trip review! If you’ve stumbled across this post and want to check out week 1, click here to read more. Week 2, let’s go!

Day 7, Sunday

We started off the day eating breakfast in our hotel, we received two free breakfast vouchers when we checked in so definitely wanted to make use of them! It was a pretty great spread; pancakes, eggs, bacon, fruit, pastries, what more could you want! Next up it was about time we checked out the outlets, there’s two outlets close but we went to the Vineland ones which are closest to Disney. I spent a fair bit of time browsing the Kate Spade outlet, as we hadn’t done much shopping yet so I didn’t decide to buy anything. Then we went back to play the summer course at the Disney Winter Summerland course, I would highly recommend the Disney mini golf course, they are so fun and we like to get a little competitive.

Later on in the afternoon we headed to Animal Kindgom for the second time as we’d made some great FastPasses, Everest, Na’vi River (again!) and Kali River Rapids – this was fab but we were so unlucky and got soaked, luckily we had a nice warm day. Then of course we headed back into Pandora to see it at night. Since we loved Satu’li Canteen so much we ate there again, this time ordering off the kids menu as we weren’t that hungry. We did really want to watch Rivers of Light but as we knew it was very unlikely we would come back for a third time in our holiday we just didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to ride Flight of Passage for a second time. So, with the standby line saying 135 minutes…we went for it. Somehow, we walked right past where we’d started queuing the first time and we were off the ride within 1 hour! At this point it was 7:55, 5 minutes before park closing so we hurried back around and got in the queue again! Another 40 minutes later we had done Flight of Passage for a second time and were wandering through an empty Pandora back to our car. I would highly recommend getting in the queue later on in the day toward park closing time, this ride really is worth waiting for.

Day 8, Monday

Monday was a hot day and we decided to head to Typhoon Lagoon for my first ever waterpark experience! I’m not ashamed to say I am not a great swimmer, I can definitely swim but I am far from a strong swimmer so I’ve always been a little nervous of waterparks. Because of this I wanted to start off doing some rides with Rich and we headed to Crush ‘n’ Gusher. The park had just opened so there was no queue at all and we rode all 3 slides of the ride which was so much fun!! It was so quiet we got on all the rides we wanted to – basically all the dingy inflatable ones – and had a lovely chillout going around the lazy river.  After a few hours we had done all we wanted and feeling pretty hungry so decided to eat at the park, Rich had more of the amazing Disney chicken nuggets and I got the Island Burger which was delicious.

Then we headed to play another round of Disney mini golf (I told you we loved it) this time heading to the Fantastic Gardens course. We also experienced our first ever Florida rain storm – luckily we hadn’t got out of the car so we stayed nice and dry. After I’d lost at mini golf (again) we headed off to Hollywood Studios for our FastPasses, where we rode Alien Swirling Saucers (very short but good fun), queued up for Toy Story Mania again, FP for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and then Tower of Terror. We only went to watch the Indiana Jones live show which was really great and I would highly recommend! Toward the end of the night it started to rain so we decided definitely not to get a seat for Fantastic and we ended up riding Tower of Terror 3 times in row, it is probably our favourite ride!

Day 9, Tuesday

Tuesday we were up bright and early for our Be Our Guest breakfast dining reservation! As we didn’t stay on Disney property it was so cool getting into the park early and great to get a much emptier photo in front of the castle. We wandered slowly across to the Beast’s Castle and headed in for breakfast. Now I know this is quite over priced for OK food but the theming is incredible and I would say it’s definitely worth it, we thoroughly enjoyed our meal and the whole experience. We got out just before 9 and were able to get in the queue for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, we probably had to wait 15 minutes or so which was great, we hadn’t wanted to queue for over an hour which is what the wait times had been every other time we’d been in the Magic Kingdom. It was definitely a fun ride, but I don’t get why it’s THAT popular!?

After spending a bit more time in magic Kingdom and getting on a couple more rides we went to get the Mono Rail to Epcot. We really hadn’t had much time to explore Epcot before now so we spent a good amount of time wandering around World Showcase and looking in each pavilion, as well as going on a couple more rides. We also did our first big bit of shopping, the Mouse Gear shop here was definitely one of my favourites and I definitely did some damage on my credit card!

Day 10, Wednesday

We decided to have a really chilled out day and not go to any parks, so we started the day using our second voucher for our hotel breakfast and then headed to the Premium Outlets. We actually really preferred this Outlet! It was super quiet and I decided to make a cheeky Kate Spade purchase, I was glad I held off before as there was more money off at this store! The Disney outlet store is also really good and we managed to get a great Everest t shirt for Rich for $10 and a cute mickey mug for $6. We then continued the theme of shopping and headed to Mall of Millenia and then had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. The food was so good here there was so much choice and the service was excellent.

We actually ended up spending the evening in the hotel as I didn’t feel too great so it was a good opportunity to relax and stay off our feet to go all out on the remaining few days of our holiday.

Day 11, Thursday

Today was a super exciting day, the day of Mickeys Very Merry Christmas Party!! We got a nice lie in (you need to fit some of those in on holiday) and then headed to Disney Springs. It’s really a fantastic place and we definitely didn’t explore it enough or try out enough of the restaurants. We wandered around the Christmas Tree trail where they have so many trees themed for loads of different Disney movies and characters. After another long browse around World of Disney we headed to our lunch reservation at T-REX. We both loved in here, the different themed areas are great, we ate in the ice cave! It’s a really fun restaurant and the food was good, Rich had a burger and I have a huge Cajun shrimp pasta dish.

After lunch we drove straight over to Magic Kingdom arriving around 3pm, so in plenty of time before the party started. The party had a great atmosphere and we had fun heading to the various cookie stations (you get free cookies!) getting on a few rides and soaking up the Christmas magic. The parade was truly fantastic and the Christmas spirit was in full swing, as was the fireworks show, Christmas Wishes.

Day 12, Friday

On our penultimate full day we decided we’d go back to Universal as we’d spent the majority of our time at Disney of course. There were a few rides we hadn’t managed to get on before, like the ET ride, which was great! Not to mentioned we wanted to spend a little more time in the Harry Potter areas and go on our favourite rides. For lunch we went to the Leaky Cauldron on Diagon Alley, theming excellent, food….disappointing. I probably would not recommend you eat here to be honest! Save your money for an ice cream at Florean Fortuscue’s! I got salted caramel blondie ice cream and it’s honestly THE best ice cream I have ever had.

After a little pit stop back at the hotel and grabbing a quick bite to eat from there, we were craving a teeny bit of Disney magic, given the time we just went for another round of mini golf!

Day 13, Saturday

Somehow our last full day had come around already, and we knew there was no better way to spend it than seeing Happily Ever After for the last time! Before heading straight to the park we took the monorail along the resort route and stopped off at the Polynesian and the Grand Floridian. It was amazing to see these two beautiful deluxe resorts, I think we were definitely dreaming of one day being lucky enough to stay somewhere like this! The Grand Floridian is of course beautiful, but I absolutely loved the Polynesian, the vibe was fantastic.

It was a busy afternoon in Magic Kingdom but we had a few FastPasses booked of course, we definitely wanted to make sure we rode our favourites one last time. For tea we headed to a very busy Casey’s Corner and shared a huge hotdog, then settled down to save a great spot for the fireworks. We had the most perfect view and just absorbed all the music and projections for one last time, a perfect last night.

Travel Day, Day 14, Sunday

We originally thought we’d have one last round of golf and browse the shops at Disney Springs. We woke up to more rain than we’d seen so far all holiday. We reluctantly packed the remainder of our things and headed to the Virgin check in at the Springs, getting soaked along the way. We ducked into the first food place we saw and had our final meal watching the rain against the windows, feeling sad it was all coming to an end!

We’ve been back for over a month now and the amount of times I’ve already looked up holidays planning to go back is ridiculous! We are hooked on Disney and can’t get enough, we’ll make it back one day. Again if any of you made it to the end of my week 2 post, a massive thank you!

Talk soon x

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