EPCOT (Day 1 & 3)
I love EPCOT. For those that haven’t been yet, you are missing out! They have a few fun rides (like Test Track, Mission: SPACE, and Soarin’ over the World), but the best part of the park is the World Showcase. There are 11 different areas that each represents a different country, and Disney does a great job of making each small area feel like a piece of that country. The cast members (Disney employees) that work in each area are from the country, the restaurants or counter service sells authentic food, and even the gift shops stock items that are found or are prevalent in the culture.
We arrived in Orlando the night before the rest of my family arrived so we got to spend an extra day in the parks – which meant TWO full days in EPCOT!! This gave us the opportunity to eat our way around the world showcase. They have so much yummy authentic food in each “country” that we wanted to try something from each (we skipped Mexico, US, and Canada because we eat those foods all the time). It was a blast! The following was our EPCOT cuisine sampling:
- Norway: School Bread, Traditional Kjottkake (meatballs)
- United Kingdom: Fish & Chips, Shepherd’s Pie, Scotch Egg, Bubble & Squeak
- Germany: Bratwurst with Sauerkraut
- France: Beignet, Tartine aux Fromage
- Italy: Gelato
- China: Egg Rolls, Red Bean Ice Cream
- Japan: Sushi
- Morocco: Lamb & Chicken Shawarma plate with Hummus and Tabouleh
My favorite meal was at the Rose & Crown Pub in the United Kingdom. We had dinner here with my parents and we timed it right so we could watch the firework show during dinner – Spectacular! And the Fish & Chips may have been the best we’ve had yet (Skylar is a Fish & Chips enthusiast).
Attractions we rode on/watched at EPCOT: Test Track, Mission: Space, Spaceship Earth, The Seas with Nemo & Friends, Soarin’ Over the World, Living with the Land, Ellen’s Energy Adventure, Frozen Ever After, The American Adventure, Pixar Short Film Festival, Impressions de France, Journey into Imagination with Figment, O Canada!, Reflections of China, Turtle Talk with Crush, Illuminations: Reflections of Earth
Magic Kingdom (Day 4)
My parents don’t bother with Magic Kingdom anymore because it’s too similar to Disneyland at home and the crowds and heat aren’t worth the boat ride over to the park. But since it was Skylar’s first time at Walt Disney World we had to go! So we took Trent and Trevor and went on Day 4 in Orlando to explore the Magic Kingdom. I do admit their castle (Cinderella’s Castle) is much more spectacular and grand than the little Sleeping Beauty Castle we have in Anaheim.
We enjoyed riding on the People Mover and watching Mickey’s Philharmagic and Stitch’s Great Escape as these are some of the novelty attractions here in Orlando.
Skylar claims Magic Kingdom’s Space Mountain is better but I strongly disagree. They don’t have the music playing in the car (just in the background on the coaster) and their cars are the same ones Disneyland used to have before they updated it years ago. But, to each his own.
The park is more spread out than Disneyland, which made things even more miserable because it takes much longer to walk from ride to ride. And they don’t have any single rider lines!! WHY?! I think it was the hardest to handle the humidity and heat while we were at the Magic Kingdom.
Attractions we rode on/watched at Magic Kingdom: Space Mountain, the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the People Mover, Stitch’s Great Escape!, Mickey’s PhilharMagic, Country Bear Jamboree, Jungle Cruise, Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor
Universal Studios (Day 5)
The highlight of the trip by far for me was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in 1999 when my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Wong, added the book to her classroom library — I was hooked. At the end of the school year I had saved up the most “Wong dollars” in my class, and Mrs. Wong gave me my very own copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (book two) as a prize. Since then, Harry Potter’s wizarding world had become part of my childhood.
The most spectacular part of Universal Studio’s Wizarding World is that it is spread out over both parks: Diagon Alley in Universal Studios Florida and Hogsmeade in Universal’s Islands of Adventure. (This is also a brilliant ploy on Universal’s part since guests have to buy park hopper passes in order to visit both parts.) To travel between the two, you ride of the Hogwart’s Express, where they show scenes of Britain’s countryside out the window and you can even see/hear Harry, Ron, and Hermione outside your cabin as well as the trolley cart carrying some magical treats.
In Diagon Alley we rode on Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts – fantastic ride, practiced some of our spells with our wands around the shops, talked to Stanley on the Knight Bus, and enjoyed some fish & chips. In Hogsmeade, we experienced Ollivander’s wand shop where “the wand chooses its wizard,” Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, Dragon Challenge, Flight of the Hippogriff, and lots of BUTTER BEER (mmmmm…..) I could have spent all week here and have been happy.
The rest of Universal Studios pales in comparison to the Harry Potter world. Their best roller coaster, the Hulk, was down. We went on a few rides, but the majority of their rides are “4D” virtual reality rides that just seem to make me sick. We ventured out into the rest of the parks a bit where we waited out an hour rain/lightning storm. But we kept making our way back to Harry Potter world because it’s the best!
In addition to the butter beer, we also splurged on a chocolate frog. I didn’t care too much for the chocolate but was most interested in the box and the collectible card. I was hoping for Dumbledore, but instead got Rowena Ravenclaw.
Attractions we rode on/watched at Universal Studios: Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts ,Flight of the Hippogriff, Dragon Challenge, Ollivander’s Wand Shop, Revenge of the Mummy, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster, MEN IN BLACK Alien Attack, Jurassic Park River Adventure, The Raptor Encounter, TRANSFORMERS: The Ride-3D, The Hogwarts Express
Hollywood Studios (Day 6)
We had fun in Hollywood Studios on Day 6 as they’ve got all of the Star Wars attractions here. Of course we rode on Star Tours, and they have the Jedi Training and Star Wars character spots, but also they had one of the coolest fire work shows I’ve ever seen. It was Star Wars themed! The fireworks were choreographed to the Star Wars music and different scenes/characters were projected onto the Chinese Theater.
We also rode on some of our favorite rides of the week: Rock’n Roller Coaster and Hollywood’s Tower of Terror. I think we rode on Tower of Terror twice, and Rock’n Roller Coaster four times – once with our fastpass and three more times in the single rider line. Thank goodness for single rider lines!
Attractions we rode on/watched at Hollywood Studios: Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Star War: A Galactic Spectacular, Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!, Star Tours, the Great Movie Ride, Muppet*Vision 3D, Toy Story Mania!, Fantasmic!
Animal Kingdom (Day 7)
Day 7, our last full day in Orlando, was at Animal Kingdom. This park was somewhat relaxing compared to the others in that it was much less crowded than the other parks. I’m not sure if that is always the case but we found it to be so when we were there.
Animal Kingdom is certainly not known for its rides, but rather its shows and safari/ animal encounters. Nevertheless, it does have my favorite ride at Walt Disney World: Expedition Everest. I was terribly excited to ride this coaster with Skylar and had gone to great lengths to ensure that no one spoiled the “surprise” for him. But then Skylar jumped into the single rider line and hopped on the ride before I could say “boo,” so I didn’t get to see his first ride. I was bummed.
On the Kilimanjaro Safari, we got to see lots of giraffes, elephants, hippos, and more. The lions were sleeping of course, but still in plain view. The most exciting part of the safari was that one of the hippos was walking around out the water, I saw an entire hippo for the first time in my life!
