I think by now people get that Jabi
and I enjoy Disneyland. Well, this year we decided to step it up a notch and we
went to Disney WORLD! – It was amazing.
We were there for three days and
managed to visit the main four parks: Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Animal
Kingdom and Epcot. We skipped the water parks.
We didn’t stay in a hotel on the Disney
World grounds; we stayed in a hotel on the outskirts of the park. Looking back
I think that was our biggest regret. Although it can be expensive to stay in a
hotel in Disney World (they have MANY) we stayed in a friendly neighbor hotel
because we were able to get an amazing deal of $27 a night through a time-share
membership belonging to my dad. It was our regret – ONLY because to get in and
out of the parks was the biggest headache of our visit.
According to Google maps our hotel was
a supposed five minutes from the main gate – WRONG!!! It felt like 15 to 20
minutes – plus, for Magic Kingdom they can’t just drop you off near the
gate. Nope, you have to arrive at Epcot and take a monorail to Magic Kingdom,
then take a SECOND monorail or FERRY boat to get to the Magic Kingdom gate. We
had no idea it would be such a journey to get into Magic Kingdom.
We left our hotel thinking we would
return midday and take a nap and refresh (since we were on about five hours of
sleep) – no! since it took us so long to get into the park, we decided to tough
it out. We spent almost 16 hours straight at Magic Kingdom. We were beat, but
we made the most of it, took our time, took breaks throughout the day and just
kept a positive vibe.
Back to the transportation headache, our
hotel provided a shuttle service, but their pick up times didn’t always
correspond with park closure times so we would miss the shuttle pick up. We
figured we would take a bus or Uber – although we managed it, we missed the
correct bus drop off by a couple of miles and had to call Uber. Then the other
days when we managed to get Uber from the parks, sometimes they couldn’t find
us right away. Disney World has an extensive shuttle system for guests staying
at their hotels or for those who want to maneuver from park to park. It all
takes a while to understand it and we didn’t really figure it out until our
last day there.
Apart from that, I loved how bigger
Magic Kingdom felt in comparison to Disneyland. The streets were wider which
meant a less crowded feeling. It was nice to see the differences in attractions
the two parks share, so if you enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean you will enjoy
seeing the differences in the attraction at Disney World. Also, each land was
slightly more bigger and offered more to look at or experience. In Fantasyland,
for example, they had a small replica of Tangled’s home land created as a rest
area for guests. Also, they had the new Beauty and the Beast addition which
included the super popular Be Our Guest Restaurant which I managed to score
reservations for, and they had Belle’s village.I managed to score reservations to the Be Our Guest Restaurant about a week prior to our trip through the Disney World Go App which allows you to make reservations, manage your itinerary, choose and organize your fast passes, plus so much more. I was checking restaurant availability daily leading up to our trip and when the opening appeared I snagged it! The food was top notch quality and the restaurant itself was grand and beautiful!! Never pass up an opportunity to dine there.
 |
| Ceiling in the Grand Ballroom |
 |
| Magic Rose in the West Wing |
 |
| Try the Grey Stuff it's Delicious! |
The other parks, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom and Epcot we managed to experience in half day increments. After our Magic Kingdom marathon we did sleep in the next day and didn’t make it into Hollywood Studios until noon. The day after, we split Animal Kingdom in the morning and Epcot in the afternoon. If you can, try and avoid doing two parks in one day.
All in all, Disney World is a must for
the Disney lover. However, I highly recommend if you have smaller children to
visit Disneyland instead. It’s just easier to get around, and you can walk
across to California Adventure if you wanted to hop parks. You could easily go
back to your hotel and rest and go back and not feel like you have lost hours
of your day. If I have children I would wait until the kids are at a age that
they don’t require naps so they can keep up with the demands and reality of
visiting such a huge theme park.
No comments:
Post a Comment