Trip of a lifetime! 🇨🇦 Our First Disney World trip as a family (with a side of Universal!) 1/16/23 - 1/27/23

[DisneyMama811]

Here is a link for the pre trip report
https://www.disboards.com/threads/d...y-get-to-take-the-kids.3886518/#post-64541366

if you don't feel like reading here's a condensed intro. We are a family of 4 from Ontario Canada. "We" is

myself (Mama - 33) lover of all things Disney, visited WDW x2 as a child and Universal x1 way back in 2001.

DH (36) the Grumpy of the group but we love him anyway, visited WDW & Universal as a teen.

DH and I also visited WDW in 2011 when we were dating and haven't made it back since, so this is like a whole new world to us!

DD8 (will also refer to her as L, for privacy reasons) she has been my little planning helper during this whole process and is so excited to try some thrill rides!

DD6 (also known as C) she's my little spitfire, stubborn sensitive and oh so sweet, she's all about the princesses and gentle rides like Winnie the Pooh and Small World

We are staying onsite and Art of Animation Resort in the Little Mermaid Rooms, Here's a brief overview of our plans

Day 0 - Drive to Toronto and stay overnight as our flight is very early in the morning!

Day 1 - Fly to Orlando! first time on a plane for the kids! arrive at AoA, take a leisurely ride on the skyliner, dinner at T-REX in Disney Springs
Day 2 - IT'S OUR FIRST PARK DAY, Hello Magic Kingdom! today we are determined to ride Splash Mountain before it closes for good. Dinner @ Tony's Town Square Restaurant
Day 3 - ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE! we hit Animal Kingdom, C is excited to join the Wilderness Explorers and dig for dinosaur bones. L wants to see a real live elephant and mount an expedition to Everest
Day 3 - Hollywood Studios! Breakfast with our Disney Jr friends at Hollywood and Vine. Today's all about Toy Story land and checking out the runaway railway! Daddy's itching to hitch a ride on a rockin roller coaster and Mama is checking in to a spooky hotel in the twilight zone...will L be brave enough to tag along? we will finish the day with Fantasmic!
Day 4 - Resort day. let's swim in the big blue pool and explore our resort!
Day 5 - Epcot, excited to experience Festival of the Arts and go on an adventure with Remy!
Day 6 - back to Hollywood Studios to revisit our favourite rides
Day 7 - our last park day. A farewell tour of Magic Kingdom with makeovers for two little princesses. see ya later Mickey I hope we'll be back one day
Day 8 - Today we move to Universal Studios but first, breakfast with Chef Mickey!
Day 9 - Wizarding World here we come, first stop breakfast at The Leaky Cauldron
Day 10 - More Universal fun!
Day 11 - Time to check out, back home to Canada, I hope the car isn't buried in snow!

 

[wabbott]

Had lunch at Hollywood & Vine last October. We were impressed. You'll love the skyliner.

 

[wabbott]

I recall the first time we took our DD, age 4 in 1990. Stayed at Caribbean Beach, and she was a trooper. We did rope drop every day, and then back to the room for a nap before hitting the parks again late in the PM.

The one photograph that I have ever since regretted NOT taking was this: She was sacked out on the bed, on her back, breathing through her mouth, arms and legs spread out like she was unconscious. I can still see that image in my mind.

 

[DisneyMama811]

Day 0 (1/15) - Oh Boy here we go!!

our day started very early with L&C bursting into our room yelling it's hotel day!!! it's hotel day!! as we live about 2 hours east of Toronto (closest major airport) we planned to drive up today and stay overnight as our flight is verrrrrry early tomorrow @ 615am. After breakfast the mad scramble to do last minute packing and repacking was on, we hit the road at 1230 only half an hour after my plan of noon (that's like a world record for us!) First stop of course was to pick up a Tim's (the coffee not a person) because you can't call yourself a Canadian if every road trip doesn't start at the Tim Hortons drive thru!! the drive to Toronto was largely uneventful with minimal traffic which was great, as we left home the temperature was a very chilly -2°c (29F) we are definitely looking forward to some Florida sunshine

Once we arrived at our hotel the girls were absolutely thrilled to see just how close we are to the airport and had a great time watching the planes taxi on the runway from our room on the 11th floor!
once we settled in we hit the pool and hot tub to splash around for a bit, then back to the room for a pizza supper, we put the girls to bed early...that 2am wake up call is gonna come awfully early!

Next up: We're leaving on a jet plane!

 

[DLo]

Hopping over from your PTR . Looking forward to reading your TR .

 

[Isabelle12345]

Fellow Canadian here and I can tell you - with the cold weather we have had lately I definitely understand the desire for Florida sunshine !
Following, can’t wait to read more

Have a nice trip!

 

[tabrizia]

Hi there. We’re here from the 14th through the 27th (we left the 12 to drive from Maryland). I was crazy though and we brought 5 preteens and teens, my 3 kids and two friends. It looks like we will overlap parks some days. I really look forward to your report.

Have a great trip.

 

[BLAllee]

Looking forward to your report. Following along.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Looking forward to this report!

 

[grapefruitjellybean]

Oh hello neighbour. Your trip sounds very similar to our Fall 2022 trip. I’ll be following along.

 

[footballmouse]

 

[Counting Stars]

Count me in- following

 

[DisneyMama811]

I promise I'll do an update tonight! it's been a very busy but fantastic few days so far!

 

[grapefruitjellybean]

I promise I'll do an update tonight! it's been a very busy but fantastic few days so far!

Wait? What? You're on your vacation now??? Girl bye, enjoy your vacation and do this when you get home.

 

[DisneyMama811]

Wait? What? You're on your vacation now??? Girl bye, enjoy your vacation and do this when you get home.

haha ok I've been taking daily notes

 

[tundra1]

Looking forward to seeing the finished product! Don'r worry about daily posting,.. you're on vacation!

 

[DisneyMama811]

ok we've been back home for two weeks now, I meant to start working on this report right away but since coming home my depressive illness has really relapsed and I haven't had the energy to do much, thinking about the trip knowing we will probably never return makes me a weird mix of happy/sad... perhaps writing about it will help me feel a bit better though.

 

[DisneyMama811]

Day 1 (1/16) - up through the atmosphere, up where the sky is clear!


2 am sure came early... especially for me who got exactly zero sleep oh well by tonight we'll be at Disney! who needs sleep? we got dressed and packed up the few remaining things scattered around the hotel room, then headed down to the lobby at 235 to find out we had *just* missed a shuttle and the next one would arrive at 3, oh well not too long, we settled in to wait. As we sat waiting for the shuttle another group of travellers arrived in the lobby and the girls were surprised and delighted to see that one of the travellers was the kindergarten teacher from their school! I guess it really is a small world after all



the ride to the airport was uneventful and I won't bore you with the headache that is Toronto Pearson Int'l
I'll just summarize it by saying I'm very glad we arrived so early as by time we finally got to our gate, it was 515 and the plane started boarding at 530! once on the plane DD6 was quite nervous and tearful and DD8 was afraid the plane would take off before she buckled her seatbelt every little noise from the plane was met with a chorus of "are we taking off, are we in the air now?" too which I replied "believe me, when we take off you'll know it!" eventually we DID take off at 7am 45 minutes behind schedule due to first an issue with the communications system and then the plane needed to be

de - iced but the pilot must have really stepped on the gas as we landed in Orlando at 9:02 which was 13 minutes BEFORE our originally scheduled arrival had we taken off on time!


once we landed things were a little bit hectic as we aren't seasoned travellers and the airport seemed huge to us, we landed at Terminal B and had to walk quite a long way to get our bags then hustle over to Terminal A to collect our rental from Kingdom Strollers then trek back over to Terminal B to find the Sunshine Flyer desk. I have zero complaints about Kingdom Strollers or their customer service, the stroller was a life saver in the parks, but if I were to ever use it again I would definitely select resort delivery instead of picking it up at the airport, by time we got to the sunshine flyer desk we were all grumpy hot tired and hungry!!

as first time users of sunshine flyer I have to say overall we were not impressed, I selected them as when we booked they had a promotion where kids were free so it only cost us like $35 which you really can't beat! other than that though we didn't find it to be well organized, the driver was not friendly and the boarding process was chaotic, several seatbelts on the bus were also broken, on the plus side they did have tv's playing the live action verison of Aladdin which the girls were happy about!
they looked so cute holding hands and thought it was so cool that they didn't have to sit in safety seats like at home!

 

[ikeandmike23]

Very excited to hear more about your trip! I also wanted to chime in because I felt so world travelled when you mentioned Tim Horton's and actually knew what you were talking about! Although I only know because my daughter recently did an overnight trip into Canada for one day while she was visiting a friend that attends Clarkson University in New York. They made it a point to eat at Tim Horton's and my daughter filled me in on the fact that it's a national treasure in Canada and truly lives up to the name!

 

[moonshadow]

Can't wait until you get to Disney!