The second half of our Disney trip may have been even better than the first, as we hit our two favorite parks, EPCOT & Hollywood Studios!
Day 5 - EPCOT
Day 5 was by far my favorite day at my favorite park - EPCOT! It is so unique and so Disney, despite having so much less outright Disney theming than the other parks. It just fully encompasses what Walt Disney wanted Disney World to be.
We started our day getting an early Virtual Queue number for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and a Lightning Lane for Remy's Ratatouille Adventure for later that morning. We started our day at the park going on a classic, Spaceship Earth. It's such a fun and classic ride that really makes you think about our past and future. After Spaceship Earth, it was already time for Cosmic Rewind. This was my first time riding, and I genuinely can't believe how fun this ride is - we were sad we didn't book an Individual Lightning Lane for it so we could go on it again. From start to finish, this ride is full of Disney and Marvel magic and fun. The queue, the pre-shows, and the ride itself all work together to make it a phenomenal experience. This may just be my new favorite Disney ride, and I WOULD wait over an hour to experience it. SO GOOD. And I love that it's always a little different because of the music choices, similar to the Guardians ride in DCA.
After Cosmic Rewind, we hopped over to Mission: Space - Green. We wanted to do Orange, but the line was surprisingly long! It's usually the opposite in our experience - Green has a long line and Orange has a short line. I had actually never done Mission: Space before, I was always too scared of it when I was younger after hearing stories from my sister and my dad. But I wanted to try both sides this time and overcome my fear. Mission Green was not too bad, but I could see how it would cause motion sickness or anxiety / claustrophobia if you're prone to that. Overall, I thought it was fun!
After that, we decided to head to France for our Ratatouille Adventure! We still had some time before our Lightning Lane reservation, but since it was a decent walk and we wanted to stop in the pavilions of the World Showcase on the way, we wanted to give some extra time. When my sister and I went to Disney growing up, we were always so focused on rides we never stopped and appreciated the pavilions' designs and shows or exhibits. This time we wanted to try to experience all of the pavilions in some way. Our first stop was in Canada where we did the Canada Far & Wide 360 show and sampled some Maple Popcorn. Now that I am a travel agent, I really appreciated the Canada Far & Wide show, as it really showed the beauty and fun that can be experienced in that amazing country. And as a New Englander, I love maple stuff (as long as it uses pure maple syrup), so I found the Maple Popcorn to be delicious.
We then moved on to the United Kingdom pavilion, where we walked around and explored the shops. We even got fries, or as they call it, chips! I did the truly European (or at least Dutch) thing that I missed from my ventures there and put mayo on the chips, and it felt just my last trip to Europe. On the way through the UK, we saw a few characters, including Winnie the Pooh and Alice (from Alice in Wonderland), but decided to continue on to France instead of stopping to do pictures (especially since we got pictures with all of the Winnie the Pooh characters at Crystal Palace). Once we got to France, it was time for Remy's Ratatouille Adventure! Another ride that we have not experienced before! This one was fun, but I would again say it's not worth the trouble of waiting over an hour for or making sure to book first thing. Just another trackless ride, which is a cool ride system, but I definitely prefer the other trackless rides like Rise of the Resistance or Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway.
My sister and I are big crepe lovers, so after Remy's ride, we got a creamy brie crepe and a chocolate hazelnut crepe in the France pavilion. I wasn't a fan of the buckwheat crepe they use for the savory crepes, but the brie inside was delicious, as was the whole chocolate hazelnut crepe. After eating our crepes, we headed back towards World Celebration to knock out the rest of the attractions on that side of the park. We started with Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana, which was another new attraction to us! It was very fun and cute, and was an especially good activity for the extremely hot and humid day it was. All the kids we saw in the attraction were having tons of fun with all of the interactive activities in there too!
We then went on The Seas with Nemo & Friends ride using a Lightning Lane. This one is always a cute and fun little ride, but it serves another awesome purpose - taking you right in to SeaBase, where you can see and learn about thousands of sea creatures. I could stay here for hours - it's air-conditioned, there's tons of cute animals, and some fun activities like Turtle Talk with Crush! My dad was always a HUGE fan of Turtle Talk, so we had to do it in his honor since he wasn't with us on this trip. Other than that, we saw sharks (and took pictures for our shark-obsessed nephew), some playing dolphins, and some hungry manatees eating some lettuce. So fun!
Journey into Imagination with Figment and Living with the Land were both down when we were walking from France, but opened up during our time in the Seas. So into The Land we went! Since Soarin' is the same as DCA, we decided to skip it... Plus, unpopular opinion, but I don't like Soarin' that much. Instead, we did another favorite of ours, Living with the Land. I love Mother Nature and it's so cool how they grow so many plants on property. After that, I needed an AC break, so I sat down for a bit while my sister did the Awesome Planet movie upstairs. Then we continued on to Journey into Imagination. It makes me really happy that Figment is getting his day recently, with a character Meet & Greet and a lot more merch and everything. The ride is okay and a bit dated, but Figment is so cute! After the ride we stuck around to take pictures with the dragon itself before grabbing some cute Figment merch and moving on.
Our dining reservation for the day was at Tutto Italia Ristorante in the Italy pavilion so headed over there via the Mexico side of the World Showcase (the correct way to go around the Showcase). My sister and I LOVE the food at the Italy pavilion, and we would get it every time we went to EPCOT growing up. My sister loves their marinara sauce and has told me multiple times she has had dreams about it. Once again, we worried that it wouldn't live up to the test of time (and nostalgia). BUT our fears did not come true! It was DELICIOUS. My sister got the classic spaghetti and meatballs, while I tried the chicken parmesan, and they were both amazing. I highly highly recommend eating at one of these restaurants (Tutto Italia or Via Napoli) on your next trip to EPCOT.
After our early dinner, we headed back to Mexico so we could do each of the pavilions from Mexico to Morocco. In Mexico, we got a piña colada and a strawberry margarita and headed inside the pyramid to look at the shops and exhibits and go on the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros. Always a cute ride. In Norway, we skipped Frozen Ever After (again an unpopular opinion, but I don't like this ride either) and got a pastry from the Kringla Bakeri Og Kafe, where I tried their Lefse, a soft flatbread rolled with Cinnamon, Sugar, and Butter. It was pretty good, but I probably wouldn't get it again.
In China, we unfortunately missed the character Meet & Greet with Mulan (our favorite Disney Princess), but we went into the pavilion to watch Reflections of China. It definitely made me want to visit China & Hong Kong, and continue on my Disney Around the World journey to Shanghai Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland. From there, we skipped Germany (as we wanted to view Luminous: The Symphony of Us there anyway and get snacks in this pavilion) and Italy (since we stopped there for dinner) and moved onto America. We looked around, but didn't do much here. However, the next pavilion was the one we we're most excited about: Japan. My sister and I love Japanese culture and are planning to do a Japan trip, including Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea, so this is a favorite of ours. Here, we went in the massive pop culture shop / exhibition and were excited to see Pokemon, Mario, Kingdom Hearts, and other video game and anime merch.
In Morocco, we looked around and admired the architecture and design, which is so different than the rest of the pavilions. Then, it was time to head back to Germany and get a spot for Luminous. While my sister found a spot, I went to go get some desserts I was super excited about - the Pretzel Bread Pudding at Sommerfest and pretty much any of the caramel items at Karamell-Küche. We settled on each trying the Caramel Chocolate Cookie and I also got a Caramel Butter Bar. I started with the Pretzel Bread Pudding, which I had heard a ton about on different Disney Facebook groups and websites. It was DELICIOUS - a nice blend of salty and sweet, and the vanilla and caramel sauces make it one of my new favorite snacks at Disney. This was by far our best eating day.
We were too full to eat our other caramel goods, so we saved them for later. We waited about an hour for the show to start and then it was... okay. I would say of the current nighttime spectacular offerings, this one was the weakest. The music composition always slays with these shows, but I found the fireworks, lights, and story to be underwhelming. I much prefer Illuminations, which was the long-running nighttime show at EPCOT when I went as a kid.
After the show, we hit the CREATIONS shop and then headed back to the hotel, ready for another chill day.
Day 6 - 1900 Park Fare, Typhoon Lagoon, & Shopping
Day 6 was our second "chill" day at Typhoon Lagoon! But first, we had another dining reservation I had been longing to try - 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. This spot just reopened after a refurb / update and I was dying to give it a try.
We drove over and the parking situation is a bit... strange. If you're dining at the Grand but not staying there, you do not park in the main parking lot. They have you cross the street and go to a lot near the Cast Member parking area. It's a bit of a walk, and a confusing one if you haven't been there before, but luckily there was a cast member with a golf cart willing to give us a ride over.
The dining room for 1900 Park Fare is GORGEOUS. There's paintings of several Disney characters all around the walls, and it just has tons of Disney magic and grandeur. Once we were checked in, the characters were already nearby so we waited for them to come over before getting food. We saw Mirabel first (who was AMAZING and just like the movie), followed by Tiana in her new Bayou Adventure outfit, then Cinderella, and lastly, Aladdin in his Prince outfit. They were all super fun, and Aladdin even pointed out my Keyblade necklace and Kingdom Hearts shirt and referenced the game! I thought that was so cool.
The food was pretty good. I wasn't as impressed with the foods as Crystal Palace and Tusker House, which was disappointing, especially since this was at the Grand Floridian and I would expect them to have the best of the best. Having done the Disney Princess Adventures breakfast at the Grand Californian in Disneyland, I thought it would be like that, but it just wasn't. The strawberry soup was pretty good, but not mindblowing. The only thing that I thought was amazing was the bread pudding - that one was pretty mindblowing.
After breakfast, we attempted to walk back to the car and got lost. We returned to the entryway to the hotel to find the same Cast Member in the golf cart that brought us over this morning! She offered yet again to give us a ride, and we were so glad. Once we got back to the car, we headed back to Typhoon Lagoon.
At Typhoon Lagoon, there wasn't much to report. We went on a couple slides that we hadn't done on our other TL day and otherwise just hung out in the wave pool and lazy river. We did get hit by a huge rainstorm in the afternoon which closed all of the attractions, but we waited it out and still got to do some relaxing afterwards. As mentioned in the first post, we DID get the nachos and the brownie sundae again. In fact, I got the brownie sundae twice on this day!
After Typhoon Lagoon, we headed to Disney Springs to go to the World of Disney store and get some last souvenirs. Again, I felt the hectic-ness of Disney Springs... parking was a nightmare and the walk to the Disney store from the garage was also a bit nightmarish. We got our souvenirs and got the heck out of there as fast as we could! Once back at the hotel, we prepared for our last park day.
Day 7 - Hollywood Studios
Day 7, our last park day, was our epic finale - Hollywood Studios. My sister and I LOVE the Tower of Terror and Fantasmic, so we were prepared for a great day.
We started our day by booking a Slinky Dog Dash Lightning Lane for around 12:30pm. When I say Slinky Dog goes fast, I mean it goes FAST. I tried to modify the time right after I booked it, and they were already sold out. Insanity!
We decided to skip Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge and the rides within it since it's almost identical to Disneyland's. Instead, when we got to the park for rope drop, we decided we would ride Tower of Terror as many times as we could before the wait got too high. We got on it twice in a row before the wait got up to past 30 minutes. We then got some breakfast at Fairfax Fare, and while the food was good (Mickey Waffles & Bacon), the wait was insane - I placed a mobile order and clicked the "I'm Here" and didn't receive my food for about 30 minutes. However, it did put us at perfect timing to go see the first Beauty and the Beast show. I LOVE the shows at Hollywood Studios. I feel like they never fail, and this one certainly didn't. It's so fun and magical and I LOVE IT.
After that, we had some time to kill, so we went to the Walt Disney Presents exhibit. It was really cool to see, and it reminded me a lot of the Walt Disney Studios Tour I did in Burbank. At the end of the exhibit, there was an area to take pictures with the live-action Little Mermaid Ariel, so we did since there was no one waiting. She was very nice and cool, so that was a fun little excursion. Then, we went to the Frozen Sing-Along Celebration, which we had never seen before, and that was a TON of fun. The narrators, or Arendelle Historians, were HILARIOUS and had us crying from laughter. I was honestly not expecting this show to be this fun. I love Frozen as much as the next person, but I was a little scared to go to a Frozen singalong with a bunch of kids and families. But I'm so glad we did, and I will definitely do it again!
After that, it was about time for our Slinky Dog Dash Lightning Lane and our Toy Story Mania Lightning Lane that we booked after Beauty and the Beast. Even though Toy Story Mania is largely the same as DCA, I just love it so much that I had to snag a Lightning Lane for it. I never do that well at it, but I always have fun. So after losing at Toy Story Mania, we headed to Slinky Dog Dash. Slinky Dog is another ride that we haven't experienced yet, as Toy Story Land wasn't completed when I last visited Hollywood Studios. It was a LOT of fun, but was definitely a short ride. AND Toy Story Land is a hotbox, so it would not be a fun line to wait over an hour for. So it's probably just another Lightning-Lane-Only ride, unfortunately. After Slinky Dog Dash, we got some treats from Woody's Lunch Box - the Grilled Three-Cheese Sandwich and the Raspberry Lunch Box Tart. The Grilled Cheese was AMAZING. It reminded us of a local grilled cheese place that we love back home. The Poptart was a bit dry, but still pretty good. However, once again... Toy Story Land is HOT. We didn't really want to stay there much longer after eating. So we kept moving and walked through Galaxy's Edge to get to the Grand Avenue/Echo Lake area. We hopped into the next Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular show, which is a favorite of ours as well, however, an impending storm cancelled about half of the show, which was a bummer.
After Indiana Jones, it was time for our last dining reservation of the trip - Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater. We did the Fantasmic Dining Package so we could get a great reserved seating area for the show that night (spoiler alert - it's worth the extra dinner spend!). We had never done Sci-Fi Dine-In before, but we knew a bit about it. It was very fun! You never realize how many bad sci-fi movies there are until you do this dinner experience. It's a very nifty dinner show. The food was okay - I would probably consider this a one-and-done if it weren't the cheapest Fantasmic package. But with the dining package, totally worth it. It would probably also be a little bit weird if you have a bigger group, as you all face the screen in little booths, but since it was just the two of us it was fine.
Finishing dinner, we headed back to MuppetVision 3D, Vacation Fun, and finally, our Lightning Lane for Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway. MuppetVision is always a classic, and Vacation Fun I would describe as... WILD. After our trip to PotatoLand, we walked over to MMRR. I would NOT go on this again with the high wait-times, only because it's EXACTLY the same as Disneyland's. I thought because it was in place of The Great Movie Ride it would be different or the queue would be, but that was disappointing.
We hit more rides after this - we made a Lightning Lane for Alien Swirling Saucers, then did Tower of Terror two more times (once with our Lightning Lane) to bring our total for the day to 4 times in one day (while doing lots of other attractions!). Pretty good! By then, it was already time to wait for Fantasmic, so we headed into our reserved viewing area.
We were in the second row in the middle section and had fantastic seats for Fantasmic. The only annoying thing I will say is that I wish they loaded front to back rather than section by section. Cast Members scolded people for sitting in the first row of the section right next to ours (that was still the Dining seating), but otherwise they were getting put in the back of our section, even though they got there way earlier than people who later loaded into the next section. Didn't really feel fair...
All that being said, when it finally came time for the show... it still gave me CHILLS. They've changed quite a bit since I've last seen it, with a Frozen II section, a Moana section, and a Mulan/Ping section... it was truly FANTASMIC. I find this version MUCH better than the Disneyland one, and you just can't beat the stadium seating at WDW either. Between the music, the projections, the pyrotechnics, etc... there's nothing that can beat this show. It was the perfect way to end our vacation.
Day 8 - Travel Day
Our flights the next morning were at 6:15am and 6:30am, so we had a very short night. We had heard that travel out of MCO is a nightmare at any time of day and that we should be there at least a couple hours early, even with TSA Precheck. We probably got back from Fantasmic/Hollywood Studios at 11pm, and then had to finish packing and wake up at 2am. Upon getting to the airport and returning our rental car, we had to split up so my sister could go to the Northeast departures section and I could go to the other Southwest Airlines section. My section was a NIGHTMARE. There was a huge line for the kiosks to get luggage tags, and then it took a long time to finish bag drop too. Security was actually not too bad for Precheck so I got through quickly then. I reunited with my sister for a bit, and then we went on our ways.
Overall, nothing much to report with my flights. I returned to Los Angeles and took a long nap!
Conclusion
Our trip was amazing, and was honestly the reset we needed after a stressful year. I think the second half of the our trip was even more fun than the first! I loveeeee EPCOT and Hollywood Studios, and it was just a blast experiencing all the new Disney magic.
If you would like help planning and booking your next Disney vacation, please reach out to me on the Book Now page or email me at jill@fantasticaladventuresbyjill.com! My travel services are included in the cost of your vacation whether you use me or not, so don't miss out on something you're already paying for!
Thanks for reading!
-Jill
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