Canadians do WDW in a (cheated) Weekend! (Jan21-24 ’17) [updated Feb7]

[jesterrific]

Hello!
​

And welcome to my first official parks Trip Report! We have done WDW quite a few times, and most of the time we do the same stuff each time, so it never occurred to me before to do a trip report. Also with most trips, we normally go for at least a week at a time. BUT this time… as a bit of a last minute decision, we booked a trip for 3 and a half days of glorious park time. And I honestly didn’t think we could get in everything we want to do in this short amount of time. SO HERE WE ARE! A trip report on doing WDW our way, in less than 4 days!


If you want to know of our original plans, I wrote up a PTR. [Click Here if you wanted to read it]
Basically, long story short… Glendon and I would only have to pay for food on this trip, so why not, right? (Flights were paid for by our accumulated amounts of air miles, resorts were booked using Glendon’s DVC points, passes paid for last year when we got our annual passes!)

But as with many plans, things change so quickly once you are actually there!!


SO a very quick intro, and then summary of our itinerary!

WHO ALL WENT!

Mitch, Me (Jessica), and Glendon!​

If you couldn’t already tell from my title, we’re all Canadians. And we live in Edmonton, Alberta. Travel to and from Orlando isn’t always the quickest, so this is why generally we don’t decide to do WDW for less than a week at a time. Glendon and I have been together for just over 3 years, and Glendon has known Mitch a very very long time.

WHAT IS THIS TRIP!​

This was my 6th WDW trip, Glendon’s 21st… and Mitch’s first ever! (5th time together for Glendon and I!) (Mitch has literally never done any sort of amusement park, theme park, any sort of rides ever in his life. So his first bang into it and we take him to WDW!) We would have loved for Mitch’s wife to have been able to join us as well, but (YAY) when we had decided to book, she just found out she’s pregnant! (Now, Mitch had such a good time he for SURE wants to bring her back! And we won’t go as fast paced next time haha.) None of us wanted to take any time off work, so we managed to swap some shifts around that made it possible for us to go for 3 and a half days in the parks (with two half days for travel time)

WHERE DID WE STAY!​

We had to do a resort hop. First night we stayed at Boardwalk Villas, then went over to Animal Kingdom Lodge Jambo House for the remaining nights.


Anyways!
Some of the things we REALLY wanted to get done on this trip included riding Frozen Ever After, seeing the new Soarin’ Around the World, take a look at some of the neat foods for Festival of the Arts, and check out the brand new Disney Springs areas! Which then, if you look at our must-do’s, it’s mostly all in Epcot so really we probably could have just spent all our days there. But you can’t pass up visiting the other parks while you’re there! (Would you believe we actually got do do ALL of those in the same day, including Disney Springs?)


SUMMARY of our trip!

• Friday January 20 - Travel Day
• Saturday January 21 - Magic Kingdom
• Sunday January 20 - Epcot and Disney Springs
• Monday January 21 - Hollywood Studios and Disney Springs
• Tuesday January 22 - Animal Kingdom and fly home!

Originally we had planned for the Monday to be our Animal Kingdom day with a full afternoon and evening in Disney Springs, and then a morning at Hollywood Studios before flying home Tuesday. But we really wanted to catch the Star Wars fireworks… and since we were staying Animal Kingdom Lodge on our last night, it made more sense to be at a closer park (Animal Kingdom) on our last day for when we had to run back to the hotel to catch our Magical Express to the airport!

Here are some random photos from this trip… then on to the table of contents!
(All photos from this trip were from my iPhone 6s, with some from Glendon’s iPhone 7, and PhotoPass!)​

(I also attempted my very first venture into vlogging on this trip… but I think I was very lacking in talking. SO I may or may not post depending on how everything edits together haha)





And ON to the Table of Contents!

 

[jesterrific]

Table of Contents!
[Will update and revise as I make new posts!]​

[Photo Heavy Days!]

• Pre-Parks Day: Travel Day, Arriving at MCO

• Saturday January 21 - Parks Day 1 [part 1]: Magic Kingdom!

• Saturday January 21 - Parks Day 1 [part 2]: MK continued, Boardwalk Villas, 'Ohana Dinner

• Parks Day 1 (continued): Evening in Magic Kingdom
• Parks Day 2: Epcot, Disney Springs. Morimoto Dinner - Animal Kingdom Lodge
• Parks Day 3: Hollywood Studios, Disney Springs. Quick service at The Mara. - Animal Kingdom Lodge
• Parks Day 4: Animal Kingdom, Fly Home
• Conclusion and Highlights

 

[luckylady]

I'm in. How long a flight is it? Wow 3 1/2 days you must have gone open to close. Congratulations to Mitch and his wife on the baby.

 

[jesterrific]

I'm in. How long a flight is it? Wow 3 1/2 days you must have gone open to close. Congratulations to Mitch and his wife on the baby.

Flight from Vancouver to Orlando is 5 and a half hours! Very easy to lose track of time of the airplane because of time zone differences

Yessss we most definitely did open to close days haha. No such thing as sleeping when at Disney! (Well, a little bit of sleeping)

 

[jesterrific]

Pre-Parks Day! Travel, and arriving at MCO. Disney’s Magical Express… Boardwalk Villas!
​

This is going to be a short (and slightly boring) one! (Sorry!)

I actually don’t know why I made “Travel” part of the title. It wasn’t too exciting and I don’t really have much to say about it. Our flight left Edmonton at 7pm, so both Glendon and Mitch worked a half day! None of us brought any checked bags. The two guys brought only a backpack. Of course, since I can, I brought a carry-on luggage.

Glendon just got a new credit card that lets you into all the airport lounges… so we took advantage of that to get some food!

Carried my magic bands on my bag so I’m ready to go!

We transferred flights in Vancouver. Had the teeniest of layovers… just over 2 hours. I got Glendon to call in advance to see if we are allowed to step out of security. They said technically yes, but you should head in through security with 2 hours to spare. SO I decided I wanted to see my BFF who lives in Vancouver, and Glendon and Mitch can stay inside the past-security area and hit up the lounge at YVR.


Had plenty of time after getting back to security to meet up with them. Curious… the last time that we had done this red-eye flight from Vancouver to Orlando (April 2016), we did customs in Vancouver before leaving for Orlando! Seems this time we are to do Customs in MCO… Anyways our flight left at 10:30 local time. Which meant we really should try and sleep on the plane, as it’s scheduled to land in Orlando at 7am! (A total of just over 5 and a half hours of flight time.)


None of us slept all that well, to be honest. We all caught mini naps at 30 minute intervals here and there… Normally for the red-eye I actually have no problem sleeping at all. Maybe I was too excited? Too anxious to get started?

At one point we looked out the window and the sky was RED! Too bad my phone couldn’t capture it well…

FINALLY we arrived at MCO! Early too! (But… alas… it didn’t matter…)
Glendon and I totally forgot that technically it’s tour group season! When we got to Orlando airport, we knew that we had to do customs, and basically praying that it would go smoothly so we could hit Magic Kingdom for open at 9am! Yeah… that didn’t happen. When we finally got to go in line, we saw that there was a HUGE lineup from a flight that had arrived much earlier in the morning. It seemed to be filled with Brazilian tour groups. The entire room filled. But luckily we got off a Canadian flight and have Canadian passports, which means we are in a separate line. Unfortunately, we didn’t think to go up as a group together. Mitch went up first and then Glendon and I were going to be right after him. But the customs lady… she said “I’M STOPPING YOUR LINE RIGHT HERE!” and basically our argument of “but we’re separated from our party…” was invalid. “THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HERE SINCE THEIR DELTA FLIGHT LANDED AT 6:30!” But… our flight only landed 20 minutes later!!!! NOOOOOOOOO Just our luck, she literally stopped our line. Finally, after what felt like eternity… the other customs guy started our line up again. SO needless to say, our early arrival meant nothing at all! We did NOT get out of customs in the timely matter we were hoping for.


I have no airport photos because I was scared to take out my phone at customs. Then after… I forgot.


Anyways we made it to our Magical Express. And all three of us passed out on the ride to Boardwalk Villas. Which is where we were headed! To check in… and change for our day at Magic Kingdom!

View from my window on the bus

And when we arrived, we were told our room was actually ready! What a pleasant surprise! We decided to get freshened up in our room. The last time that Glendon and I had the Boardwalk booked… we actually had a bit of a bad experience (room wasn’t ready until late in the day, which isn’t unusual, but when we got in, the room was done up like it had been taken care of… but it was DIRTY like it didn’t get cleaned at all!!!) So when we complained, they didn’t have any other rooms available so Disney upgraded us to a larger room in Bay Lake Towers. So we never really got to stay at the Boardwalk before this trip!


But I had ALWAYS wanted to. And I’m glad we got a chance to again. It’s just so cute! (I love all things carnival…)

Just about all ready to go! Mitch finishing up his hair back there

Waiting for a bus to take us to MK. I don’t know why the personalized garbage cans amuse me so much

And fiiiiiinally finally FINALLY we made it to Magic Kingdom!!!! (Prior to coming, we had checked touring plans for crowd levels and it had said this particular day for Magic Kingdom to be a 6.)

Umm… what is this HUGE crowd. Not even at the gates yet. WHAT IS THIS. THIS IS NOT A CROWD LEVEL 6.

Up Next… Our day at Magic Kingdom! Including: some troubles at the gate, lone castle adventures, all my favourite rides (sort of!), ‘Ohana dinner!

 

[jesterrific]

Saturday, January 21: Parks Day 1
[part 1]
Magic Kingdom!​

Originally, we had planned to arrive for park open so we can run over to Peter Pan so we could get at least one ride through… but alas that did not happen since customs ended up taking much longer than we had anticipated. SO instead we just decided it’s okay, we will find our time later in the day. We had our first fast pass at 10:00am to 11:00am for Space Mountain, so really that’s what we were aiming for.

WELL we got to the gate, and Glendon and I got through seamlessly, but Mitch’s ticket needed to be verified. And had to go through guest services… The line up was HUGE!!! So Glendon and Mitch waited in line while I wandered the Magic Kingdom on my own until they finished… (Mitch’s ticket needed to be verified because he got his tickets as a Canadian… and they have a deal for Canadians right now for 25% off park tickets. SO they just had to verify that he actually is a Canadian citizen.)

Here I am in front of the train station… that is currently under refurbishment!

First walk onto Main Street! Too bad that first building is currently ugly brown wrapped

We honestly didn’t really have a clear idea how long the lineup for guest services was going to take, so I decided to wander the shops for a bit. (They were saying the line could take up to an hour)

Winnie the Pooh is one of my favourite characters… So I thought these guys were super cute

Section of Duffy and Shelly May

Castle selfie

Walt, Mickey, castle, and a whole ton of people

Peeking at Tomorrowland

I secretly wanted to use my fast pass for Space Mountain by myself, but I felt a bit guilty getting a ride in on my own while they had to wait at guest services… So I kept on wandering around. The cast member they were talking with said that he would fix our fast pass that they are technically missing, so that we can still go on Space Mountain sometime during the day.

Lone photo pass session

Yay my favourite princess’s castle

I ended up wandering all the way to New Fantasyland, and looped back around. You would be surprised at how much you can get done in an hour when you are on your own! I really could have gone and waited in line for Peter Pan on my own too… but by the time I had thought maybe I should do that, they were getting close to being done.

Castle and reflection!

I managed to catch this party parade in front of the castle as well?

FINALLY they made their way in!!! We met back up on Main Street right in front of Casey’s Corner and… it was already halfway past the start of our next fast pass! So since we missed out on Space Mountain already… we immediately made our way to New Fantasyland for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!!!!!! (One of my newest favourites)


But first, Glendon and Mitch needed to use the washrooms so I stood and took some video of the ride!

AND FINALLY!!! OUR FIRST RIDE OF THE TRIP!!!

Snow White’s cottage

After our ride… it was already past noon, and we were all STARVING. We hadn’t had any real food since we were still in Vancouver! We didn’t have any lunch reservations, so we just decided to head to Cosmic Ray’s in Tomorrowland.

View from my table as I waited for the guys to get our food. People watching is quite the adventure in Magic Kingdom

And lunch has arrived! I ordered a chicken nuggets kids meal. I love Disney chicken nuggets and chicken tenders. But I also can’t finish a full adult sized one. That’s just too much for me haha. Plus we have ‘Ohana dinner booked for 4:15.

Glendon and Mitch both ordered the chicken tenders (not kid sized) and shared some fries. All in all it seemed to be the perfect amount between the three of us. So really total was 1 chicken tender meal with fries. 1 chicken tender order no fries. and 1 kids chicken nuggets. Kids meals come with those apple slices. I like apples but I’m not really a fan of packaged fruit.


After lunch we decided that since we were already in Tomorrowland, to hop onto the Peoplemover. Normally there is hardly ever a wait and we walk right on whenever Glendon and I go… but there was actually a 15 minute wait this day!!! (Didn’t really help that the group in front of us took too long to load and ended up stalling the ride, and we had to wait for the loop reset.)

Here’s Glendon and Mitch!

Every time we go on this ride with people who have never been on before, they always think it’s a short loop around Tomorrowland (basically the amount of track that you see above you when you are walking around.) They don’t realize it’s basically a whole tour around and through Tomorrowland! It’s one of Glendon and I’d favourites. It helps that you get to ride through Space Mountain! Which got Mitch excited for Space Mountain, seeing that it’s in the total darkness. Also got him a little bit nervous haha.

And we’re off! The line up jumped up even longer after we got off! Talk about lucky

Then we decided it was finally time to head to Starbucks so Mitch can get himself an espresso. Normally I would also get myself a coffee… but Magic Kingdom has it’s own kind of energizer magic going on…

Boulder things at the front of Tomorrowland

​

To come... One more ride... Boardwalk pool... 'Ohana and Trader Sam's!

 

[jesterrific]

Saturday January 21: Parks Day 1 [part 2]
Magic Kingdom continued!
Some time at the Boardwalk Inn, ‘Ohana dinner​

After Mitch got his espresso, we made our way to our next fast pass: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!!!

“Hang on to your hats an’ glasses, ‘cause this here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness!”

Mitch held on real tight the entire ride! He basically watched Glendon and I fly around the entire ride haha (we actually think it’s hilarious just how much you fly all over the place!) After our ride through, we went over to the FastPass+ kiosk by Liberty Square at The Diamond Horseshoe to add a fastpass! (Since we missed our Space Mountain FP in the morning, that meant we used up all three of our booked fast passes already!!!) We chose Splash Mountain for after dinner.

We watched some boats come down for a while.

After this, we decided it was finally time to head back to the hotel for a little bit of rest time, so we can be recharged for the evening. Plus wait times for all the rides in Magic Kingdom were all at long waits! So it felt like a good time to go for a bit!

We decided to walk the Boardwalk for a bit when we arrived

Here is Ample Hills Creamery!

Glendon and I had been seeing people post their delicious looking ice cream all over social media for the last little while and we wanted to check it out. (Unfortunately, I had a very bad dairy allergy so I can’t have any ice cream…) I tried to convince Glendon and Mitch to get an ice cream, but they were both too tired to have ice cream sit in their stomachs.


Then we walked passed the pool on our way to our room. It’s a very … neat idea. I think the theming is cute. I love that the slide is meant to look like a roller coaster. Except for some reason the exit of the slide being a giant clown’s mouth is a touch creepy.

When we got to the room, Glendon and Mitch passed out for a nap almost immediately. I had a bit of an internal struggle, as I had originally planned to go to the pool during this time (I have this thing, where if a resort I’m staying at has a pool, I HAVE to go swim in it… ESPECIALLY if there is a slide! I HAVE to go on it) but I was sooooo tired. In the end… I decided to go to the pool. Especially ever since I saw this slide the first time during a walk on the boardwalk… It’s been a nagging itch at the back of my mind for a good few years. Sleep can come later. I gotta check this slide off my bucket list.

Here is a random video I took walking up the stairs to the slide. I loved that you had a bit of a view when you climbed the stairs to the slide

(Excuse the terrible video recording.)
​

I was really glad I went to the pool and onto the water slide. It was a lot faster than I was expecting it to be! The slide itself isn't that high up so I hadn't expected to pick up a lot of speed. I loved it so much I rode it two more times before heading back to the room!
I got back to our room with just enough time to shower out the pool water, and then we all got ready to head out! The weather forecast looked nice for the evening, so we all opted out of bringing sweaters.


We decided to catch an Uber from our resort to the Polynesian, as that seemed to be the cheapest but most reliable option to get there. We weren’t sure how timing would work out if we took a bus to Magic Kingdom then hopped on to the monorail to the Polynesian! (It only cost us $4 USD, so why not.)

Arrived!

You get to sit in this nice waiting area with lots and lots of chairs and couches while you wait. (Small view of the restaurant in the back there)

We got there a little bit early, and luckily they took us in almost right away! If you haven’t been to ‘Ohana before, it’s like family style, all you care to enjoy. They bring out some appetizer dishes, then skewers of freshly grilled meats come out and you can have as much as you want!!! Then dessert. Omg. I’d never been before but you can smell the grilling meats just being near the restaurant. Plus Glendon had been raving about this place for forever, so needless to say we were quite excited!

Salad dish!

Appetizer plate: veggies, chicken wings, pan fried dumplings, and black pepper noodles

This was our view from our table

You can sort of see Cinderella castle in the far background!


Bread

Coconut pineapple bread?​

“Special Bread”

(Non dairy bread. I also suspect it is gluten free bread? With non-dairy spread)


Steak skewer!

The most delicious grilled shrimp ever

We thoroughly enjoyed ALL of it. The first round of steak was more on the well done side, but still very tender. We had to make sure to tell our server “3 pieces” or however many it was we wanted, or else he would unload half the skewer onto our plate!!! We were also able to ask for a more rare steak and he brought a full skewer out for us. My favourite was the shrimp. They came with shell, but the shells were already cut open so it was very easy to cut them out. The steak and chicken were just as good (I liked the chicken skewers better than the appetizer chicken wings.) I think I liked the shrimp the best though because I don’t have a lot of grilled shrimp that tastes amazing! But the winner of the meal was definitely the black pepper noodles!!! Each of us didn’t want to eat too much of the noodle because we wanted to eat more meat, but we couldn’t help continuing to load the noodles onto our plates.

Then… Dessert!!!!

Their famous banana bread pudding. Looks so tasty!


Jessica’s dairy-free dessert:

Rice dream with dairy free ginger snaps and BERRIES!​

Normally I kind of dread dessert because usually they bring out sorbet, or a melon plate. I don’t mind sorbet, but I don’t prefer it. Especially if at most restaurants that’s their only option for dairy free. Otherwise it’s a fruit platter. Which I don’t mind, if it’s fruit I like. If it’s melons I hate it. I don’t like melons at ALL. SO when a bowl of rice dream and BERRIES was brought out I got excited. Dairy free ginger snaps with rice dream and berries. It’s a good combination haha.


Price for dinner was $43 per person (before tax and tip).
We thoroughly enjoyed and will be doing that again if we can get another reservation for future trips!

A view of the grill station on our way out:

After dinner, we had planned on going to Trader Sam’s just for some fun. When we got in it was pretty full and there wasn’t any seats available, so we just went and walked around the Polynesian for a little bit.

Beach area and the bungalows

Looking back at the resort!

Pineapple Lanai

Can come here and have your fill of dole whip without going into Magic Kingdom!​

We only stayed in Trader Sam’s for a short while. Not many people were ordering fun drinks haha. We wanted to see more fun orders. (We were too tired to have a beverage each. Worried we would get too sleepy for our evening at MK)

​

Then we are off again back to Magic Kingdom for our evening activities!
To come... finishing off Magic Kingdom!

 

[luckylady]

Yum O'Hana is good. Looks like they chanced the menu since I was last there. Great update can't wait to read about your evening at MK.

 

[Ohhlookitsnic]

Love this TR ! Im also from Alberta ! But I'm a few hours north from you ! Edmonton is such a lovey city, always loved it! It now has bigger spot in my heart after all you did for us durning the terrible forest fires last May !

 

[Ohhlookitsnic]

I was in Disney ( First time) almost a month after you ! Loved it so so much ! I love reading TR's from people who were there around the same time as me !

 

[jesterrific]

Love this TR ! Im also from Alberta ! But I'm a few hours north from you ! Edmonton is such a lovey city, always loved it! It now has bigger spot in my heart after all you did for us durning the terrible forest fires last May !

Thanks for following along!!! Sorry it's taking me so long to write this guy up, I was being a bit too ambitious when I started it haha. Too many other commitments right now!
But glad to hear! I love Alberta. Last year's fires really were so devastating =( Hope you weren't too badly affected and praying it won't be another problem this year

 

[jesterrific]

I was in Disney ( First time) almost a month after you ! Loved it so so much ! I love reading TR's from people who were there around the same time as me !

That's so awesome!! How long did you get to go for? Were the crowd levels high??

 

[Ohhlookitsnic]

I was there Feb 25th- to March 2nd. Flew home early that morning so the 1st was our last park day. Totally not enough time spent there, next time I will not be making that mistake ! It was the Princess Marathon weekend so it was pretty busy the 25th- 27th. Then it was Mardi Gras week... Magic Kingdom on tuesday was insane but the other 3 parks were bearable !

 

[missangelalexis]

Joining in! Sounds like a great first day so far! Ohana is one of my favorite- sooo good!

 

[jesterrific]

Joining in! Sounds like a great first day so far! Ohana is one of my favorite- sooo good!

Ahaha, this one is taking me a loooong time to get to to finish up, even though it's one of my shortest trips!