"Life moves pretty fast...if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Life sure has moved fast. So fast, that it's been a year since my last return home. Last summer my husband and I (our couple name is "Natlyn"-Nathan and Katlyn) went on what I like to call a "do or die" trip. I've done one before with my mom and they're high-intensity, but lots of fun. How it works is this: we take an early morning flight (this one was at 6am) and arrive at MCO in the early afternoon. Hop on the Magical Express to our resort, then off to a park. Hit 2 parks on arrival day, the other two parks the second day, then hit Disney Springs on departure day. The thing that has to be understood with this style of trip is that you have to have somewhat of a plan and also know that you won't get to do everything. In this particular case, Extra Magic Hours were most definitely our friend, and dictated how we would visit the parks.
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| Did you really fly through MCO if you didn't stop for a pic here? |
We started our trip with a flight out of our home airport, which included a small layover in Atlanta. Fortunately the weather was in our favor so we had no delays or turbulence and arrived to MCO fairly quickly. A quick trek over to the Magical Express and we were off. We stayed at the All-Star Movies resort (which coincidentally, was where I stayed when I previously did a "do or die" trip). A quick stop at our room to drop off some items, then a stop at the food court for our reusable mugs (we had selected to do the Dining Plan to make planning easier) and a water bottle fill up and we met our Minnie Van we had ordered to take us to Animal Kingdom.
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| Nothing like a selfie with a giraffe butt |
After an amazing Minnie Van experience, we headed into Animal Kingdom. We hadn't eaten lunch yet, so we mobile-ordered some pizza from Pizzafari. We ordered in the Oasis and by time we arrived at Pizzafari our food was ready and waiting for us. (seriously-Mobile Order is amazing, and such a time saver). After we finished lunch, we headed off for our first fastpass: Kilimanjaro Safaris. Pro tip: in a "do-or-die" or short trip, book your fastpasses in back to back windows. This will maximize your fastpass capabilities. More on that later. We hit our safari, which was once again quite awesome.
After our safari, we headed over to Asia to hit the single rider line for Expedition Everest. By time we were done with that, we had entered our second fastpass window, which was for Dinosaur. I was excited for this one, because we weren't able to ride it our previous trip due to being closed for refurbishment. Then it was time for the most exciting fastpass: Flight of Passage. Initially, when I had booked our fastpasses, I wasn't able to get a FOP fastpass. But, thanks to incessant checking of the My Disney Experience app, I was able to snag one, replacing the one I had initially booked for Na'vi River Journey (we'll eventually get to ride that one, one day). Entering Pandora was like entering another world. It was so beautiful. Flight of Passage blew my mind. It was like Soarin' on steroids. I really felt like I was flying on a banshee. My husband equally loved it. After we finished Flight of Passage, we grabbed a Mo'ara margarita, stopped at one of the shops so I could live my best #basic life and get my rose gold ears, then we were off to Epcot. Oh and fun fact: we did all of that in about 2 and a half hours.
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| Hubby enjoying his Mo'ara margarita. |
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| Pandora is so beautiful. I can't wait to have more time to explore |
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| Soarin' selfie |
When we arrived at Epcot we headed to ride Journey into Imagination with Figment. After a brief pause to do some doctoring on some unfortunate blisters, we headed over to the Disney Chase Visa Character Meet. It's located right across from the Imagination pavilion. Just show your Disney Chase Visa card and you get into a character meet n greet with minimal waiting. We have done this once before. This particular one typically has 2 of the "Fab Five" characters. Previously, we had met Minnie and Pluto. This time, we met Mickey and Goofy. No waiting. After this, we headed over to the Land Pavilion. We had previously booked a fastpass for Soarin' (once we had scanned our FOP fastpass), but hadn't quite hit our window yet. So we hopped on Living with the Land. We both enjoy going through the greenhouses and seeing the different things that Disney grows. Once we finished that, it was time for Soarin'. We decided to wait a little bit extra so that we could have the top row of section b-aka the best view. And let me tell you-it did not disappoint. Well worth the extra 10 minutes we waited for it. After that, it was time for dinner. We had decided to save our table service credits for the next day at Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom, so we ate dinner at Sunshine Seasons right across from Soarin'. After we finished dinner, we headed into World Showcase. We had a mission pre-park close: hit the Tea Caddy in the United Kingdom for our favorite snacks. We were able to complete our mission, then we headed over to Norway. At first we were going to ride Frozen Ever After, but decided that instead (since we had ridden that one before) that we would go meet Elsa and Anna in their Sommerhus. We then made a stop in my favorite pavilion-Mexico. We wandered inside for a few minutes and saw the Coco displays, which of course brought a couple tears to my eyes. As we wandered by Choza de Margarita, a thirst hit, and so we got another margarita-this time lime. We then wandered over to see the "Rose Gold Wall" and the "Guardians Wall". Of course, harkening back to my #basic nature, photos were taken at each. Before we left Epcot that night, we took a ride on Spaceship Earth (which may be the last time we ride it before it closes for its long refurbishment).
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| Grand and Miraculous for sure! |
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| A selfie with the queen herself! |
We then headed back to All-Star Movies to rest up for the next day...a day that would start at 7am and end at 1am...to be continued.
