Disney in June: Celebrating our anniversary.
We decided that this year, we wanted to do a quick getaway to our favorite place on earth. We were grateful that my mother in law came into town to watch our kids while we did Disney, adult style.
Our magical trip began in the very early hours of Friday, June 14th. We have always been a fan of the early flights as we don’t feel like we are wasting an entire day with travel. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 5:10am. Our alarms went off somewhere around 3 with just enough time to get dressed, make coffee, grab the last-minute stuff and throw it in our bags, pack them in the car and head out the door. We had a huge day at Magic Kingdom planned and we were so excited to get there.
Flight lands around 7:30am. Blitz to the Magical Express area, board our bus and away we go!
Today is Magic Kingdom day, we have a thing of beginning all trip there. Seeing Cinderella's castle as one of your first sights, there just isn't anything else that compares.
On our plan for the day is all our favorite rides. We had fast passes for all the mountains (space, splash and big thunder) plus hit some extra fast passes (you get 1 more at a time after you use your given 3 for the day) and some standby lines. I was most excited for my favorite ride, It’s a Small World. I mean, how could we not when I was sporting the perfect outfit for it?
We grabbed a quick breakfast at Gastons Tavern. This is a must do on our list every trip for a warm cinnamon roll and a LaFou’s Brew (apple cider slush with toasted marshmallow topped with a fruity foam). This was enough to split and tide us over to our lunch at Be Our Guest Restaurant. The unique thing about Be Our guest is that for breakfast and lunch it’s a quick service place and for dinner it’s a sit down credit dining location(2 credits per person). We have done all of the dining experiences here and keep coming back for more. You order ahead on your My Disney Experience app, find a table once you are called in and your food magically appears to your table. There are 3 rooms to dine in. You have the grand ball room which is just like from the movie. Dine in the vast open grand dance floor complete with cherubs on the ceiling. The window outside shows a magical nighttime snowfall. To the right is the Library. The centerpiece of this room is the dancing statue of Belle and Beast. To the left is our favorite room of all, the Rose Room. Dine in dimmed lighting, beast’s slashed portrait hangs in the hall. The rose under glass is the main focus here. You will experience a few thunderstorms that will perform magic to the portrait as well.
We headed to Epcot to walk to our resort. Since we were here, we snagged a Frozen Ever After fast pass and topped our big day with the majority of our favorite rides. We called it a day a little early (I mean 3am was a long time ago) and headed to check out the resort. The Yacht Club is stunning! Our room overlooked one of the resorts smaller pools, nice and tranquil. Our balcony had 2 chairs and a table out there so we could enjoy the Florida weather from our room.
This resort also has our favorite pool. There is a water volleyball area, a deep lazy river, 3 different hot tubs, a sand bottom complete with an elevated sand bar for the littles, and the main focus is the waterslide. This waterslide begins across the boardwalk, launches from the crows nest of the ship wreck and goes back over the boardwalk. You will hit 2 different waterfalls along your journey twisting and turning along the rocks before plunging to the pool below.
A quick dip later, we were done for the night and decided to treat ourselves to a Minnie Kitchen Sink Sundae from Beaches n Cream ice cream shop right there. This sundae has EVERYTHING (hence the name kitchen sink) plus comes in this adorable keepsake Mickey or Minnie sink bowl. We head back up and enjoy our sundae on our balcony and then off to bed.
Day 2 was nothing but Epcot. Fast passes and 2 dining experiences. We got a later start as our first fast pass was until 10am. I believe this day we managed all the rides. Epcot to us is more about the food and drink than anything. We have tried a lot different restaurants, but not all and we were adding 2 new places to our “have done” list.
Lunch was at Restaurant Marrakesh located in the back of the Moroccan Marketplace. This place offers a show with your meal as a belly dancer will come out for a 20-minute performance. The inside of this place is stunning, the detail work that went into the layout, design and décor is memorizing. The Moroccan inspired menu is full of delicious dishes that cater to all tastes.
Dinner that night was at Tokyo Dining in Japan. This place sits above the Japanese Marketplace and has a balcony that overlooks the World Showcase Lagoon. The entrance shares with its sister restaurant Teppan Edo (a Japanese Hibachi). The hostesses will direct you to your correct area. Tokyo Dining offers a wide variety of different Japanese dishes, sushi, noodles and bento boxes. This ended our evening and we called it an early night knowing what was coming the next day….
Day 3……the “relaxing” day.
This was the day we had built to be our low-key day. No real strict timeline, no real plans, just a do what we want day. Well the day before we heard someone talking about the 4 park challenge. This is stepping foot in all 4 parks in 1 day, riding at least 1 ride, eating at least 1 thing and a photo op. Our fast passes were in Animal Kingdom that day, we had dinner scheduled at Magic Kingdom so we just had to get the other 2 parks in. Let's do it!
We had no plans for Hollywood studios during this trip, but they did have extra magic hours in the AM this day. We knew this was our only chance to go and get on Slinky Dog Dash and avoid the huge line. We got to the park an hour before open and began walking back 30 minutes before open. They started queueing us up for Slinky Dog right away, and we were on and off that ride in 15 minutes. We blitzed over to Toy Story Mania and wait about 30 minutes for that. Grab breakfast at Andy’s lunchbox and head for the buses by 9am.
At Animal Kingdom our fast passes were for Flight of Passage, Expedition Everest and Khali River Rapids (we got soaked which was a sign of what was to come). Lunch we headed into Satu’li Canteen for a Satu’li bowl. This place is our favorite quick service place as the food is unlike anything else in Animal Kingdom. With full stomachs, we headed off to park 3.
Epcot was a blitz trip. We snagged a fast pass for the 3 big rides and walked on Spaceship earth (as it was raining and we were trying to kill a bit more time before heading over to Magic Kingdom). We grabbed a snack of school bread in Norway before making our way out of the park. The radar was not in our favor, we finally made the call and ran for the monorail. We had a Seven Dwarves Mine Train fast pass to make.
The rain had stopped by the time we got there. We made it to the line, scanned in, got boarded and took off. At this moment we realized that the rain has picked up again. A roller coaster in the rain is not as fun as you would think. Rain hurts when you’re going fast. After this, we had some time before our dinning reservations at the Plaza Restaurant, yet again another new one for us and the last new one in Magic Kingdom.
The Plaza is a little hidden gem next to the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor. It’s a small restaurant with no more than 30 tables inside. Widows overlook the beauty of Cinderella’s castle and we were seated in the sun room, this gazebo shaped extension with a curved booth along the edge. The menu here offers family friendly food fit for everyone. Steak, Mac n. Cheese, Meatloaf just to name a few.
We decided to hit up some more rides (including Splash mountain as the Happily Ever After fireworks began). On our way out we got our certificates to mark our adventurous day and went back to our resort and crashed.
We began at 7am, ended at 10pm. Walked a half marathon in all and had an absolute blast.
Day 4, our final day.
We decided to do a tour for the first time ever. We found a new one called the Taste of Magic Kingdom, a behind the scenes tour of what it takes to feed all the visitors to the park that day. This tour was eye opening, amazing and one of a kind. We got to step foot in the different kitchens of select restaurants, taste different foods (both on and off menu items), and even got to go backstage behind Be Our Guest and see the main cast member entrance. The whole tour lasted around 3 hours. After the tour finished, we didn’t have much time left before our wonderful vacation would come to an end. We did our fast passes for our favorite rides and then headed for the Tragical Express.
Until next time…..
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