I tried to make this post as user friendly as possible, so I wrote out ALL of my thoughts and everything we did each day, but if that is too much for you, I also just included a short synopsis of our schedule at the top of each day and included a rating for each restaurant, ride, or shopping experience. I also have 3 YouTube videos about Disney (packing, my Disney day bag, and Disney vlogs), so I will link all of those below as well.
DAY ONE: Arrival Day
-Arrived @ 12:30pm
–Disney Springs for shopping at Zara, American Threads, and the Disney store (10/10)
-Lunch at Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill (8/10)
-Dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table (10/10 for experience)
We actually started off our trip on a not so good note–when we arrived in Orlando we noticed that one of our bags didn’t make it. We talked to the Allegiant worker, who told us the bag would be FedEx-ed to our hotel the following morning. That meant, my friend Amber had nothing to wear to dinner that night or to Universal Studios the next day. This is what prompted our visit to Disney Springs–we were starving and we needed to go shopping.
Later that night, we had dinner reservations at Cinderella’s Royal Table, which was seriously so much fun. Everyone gets a magic wand when dining here and the princesses come around to take pictures with all the guests. It really does make you feel like you’re in one of the Disney princess movies. The Magic Kingdom fireworks show happens every night at 9:15pm, so it was really cool that we could hear the music for that and see some of the fireworks out of the window. The food was really yummy, too (pictures below)! After dinner, we hopped on the Tea Cups ride and the carasoul because when in Magic Kingdom, you act like a kid again.
DAY TWO: Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure
-Breakfast: In Room Dining Service at the Waldorf
-Favorite Rides: Harry Potter & the Forbidden Journey, Race Through New York with Jimmy Fallon
-Snacks/Treats: Butterbeer (10/10)
-Dinner @ Anijitos (so good) (9/10)
Upon our arrival at Universal Studios, we were told that the park would be closing early for a high school event called GradBash. This was a little disappointing considering this information was not disclosed before we purchased park tickets and our tickets were not discounted. Due to this inconvenience, we had limited time at the park, but we made the best of what time we did have! We rode several rides at Universal such as the Harry Potter one, Fast & Furious, The Simpsons ride, and the Jimmy Fallon New York ride, which was surprisingly one of our favorites. Having been to New York several times, it was cool to see it in a 3D situation where it looked SO real. Our favorite part of Universal was definitely Harry Potter world. I’ve never seen Harry Potter (I know–crazy), but it was still so much fun and so cool to see. The Butterbeer is a MUST HAVE. It’s a non-alcoholic beverage you can get frozen, as a normal, liquid drink, or as ice cream. It was SO YUMMY.
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| Donut purchased from a lunch spot in the Simpsons world area |
Next, we headed over to Islands of Adventure where we rode a couple more Harry Potter rides and a Jurassic Park ride. After those, it was pretty much time for us to get kicked out for the high school event starting at 6pm. After leaving the park we went to the restaurant Anijitos for margaritas and tacos. We LOVED this place, too–I got the blood orange margarita and it was AMAZING. They also made guacamole right there in front of you, which was super cool! After dinner, we headed back to our hotel to get some rest before another long day!
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| Blood Orange Margarita |
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| Table Side Guac |
DAY THREE: EPCOT
-Breakfast: Waldorf Breakfast Buffet
-Fast Passes: Soarin’ (8/10), The Seas with Nemo & Friends (6/10), and Spaceship Earth (7/10)
-Fast Pass Recs: Try to get Test Track or Frozen Ever After if you can
-Snacks/Treats: World Showcase Bar Crawl, Cookies & Cream Funnel Cake
-Lunch @ Nine Dragons Restaurant (Chinese) (10/10)
-Dinner @ Via Napoli (8/10)
We heard a lot of mixed reviews of Epcot before we went, but for us, it was one of our favorite parks. For our fast passes we chose Soarin’, The Seas with Nemo & Friends, and Spaceship Earth. We weren’t able to get a Fast Pass for Test Track, but we did wait in line for it–it was definitely a cool ride, but I wouldn’t wait in line for an hour again to ride it. We also rode Frozen Ever After, which we all absolutely ADORED. It was so precious and anyone who love the Frozen movie will love this ride.
Aside from the rides we rode at Epcot, we had a BLAST going through all of the “countries” in the World Showcase. We actually did a little bar crawl while we walked through each country and it was super interesting to taste all the different flavors in the foods and drinks.
We stopped in “China” at the Nine Dragons restaurant to split a couple appetizers. We got the General Tso’s buns and the Vegetable Spring Rolls–I’m not even kidding you guys, this is the best Chinese food I’ve eaten (probably just because I haven’t had a lot of authentic Chinese food LOL). But seriously, it was really good. We bounced around between countries and rode a few more rides and after that, in the evening we had dinner reservations in “Italy” at Via Napoli. The people who worked at that restaurant were SO nice and the food was pretty good, too. After dinner, we watched the Epcot lights show while munching on a cookies & cream funnel cake (delicious!!)!
DAY FOUR: HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
-Breakfast @ Waldorf Astoria hotel
-Fast Passes: Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (9/10), Star Tours (6/10), and Tower of Terror (9/10)
-Fast Pass Recommendations: Try to get Slinky Dog Dash (8/10) & Toy Story Mania! (9/10)!
-Snacks/Treats: Homemade Pop-tarts in Toy Story Land
-Lunch @ 50s Prime Time Cafe (7/10)
-Dinner @ Bull & Bear at the Waldorf (10/10)
Hollywood Studios has such a cool vibe to it because it constantly feels like you’re just casually walking around the set of a movie. For our fast passes we chose the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, the Tower of Terror, and Star Tours. My favorite ride here is definitely Tower of Terror–to me, it’s so much fun! We also rode a couple of the Toy Story rides (Toy Story Mania! is so fun to try and beat your score each time if you can go more than once) and the Slinky Dog Dash–this is another one that was super fun, but I don’t know if it was worth the wait for me.
We had lunch at the 50s Prime Time Cafe, which was such a fun experience. It’s even cooler if you request a “TV table” where it feels like your right back in the 50s eating dinner in front of an old school TV. The waitresses here also make the experience seem so real by making sure everyone eats their vegetables and minds their manners. It’s such a cute place and it reminds you of just being in Grandma’s kitchen. Later on we also tried these super yummy homemade pop-tarts we heard about and let me tell you–they were worth it. They were SO GOOD!
After our fun day at the park, we went back to the hotel and had dinner at the restaurant there called Bull & Bear. Before going into the restaurant, we stopped to grab this blue light drink in Peacock Alley we had been seeing. It looked super cool and tasted pretty good, but the concept of the the block of ice didn’t really work (we couldn’t get our drink to come out of the ice), so they just fixed us the same drink in a regular glass after we got our pictures with the crazy drink. Bull & Bear is a more upscale, fine dining restaurant and I HIGHLY recommend going if you like restaurants like that. Literally everything we tasted was amazing and the staff are incredibly nice. We all had steaks for our meal and for desert they served a really unique deconstructed lemon slice desert that was amazing and I got a dark chocolate peanut butter desert that was also really good. Overall, we had a super pleasant experience here.
DAY FIVE: ANIMAL KINGDOM
-Breakfast at Creature Comforts (basically Starbucks) (8/10)
-Fast Passes: Kilimanjaro Safaris (10/10), The Na’vi River Journey (9/10), and Expedition Everest (9/10)
-Fast Pass Recommendations: Try to get Flight of Passage (11/10)!
-Lunch @ Pizzafari (7/10)
-Shows: Festival of the Lion King (9/10), It’s Tough to be a Bug! (9/10)
-Snacks/Treats: Night Blossom drink (with or without alcohol) (10/10)
-Dinner @ Tusker House (8/10)
Our next day was at Animal Kingdom, which we were super excited about because we all love seeing animals and things like that. Animal Kingdom was definitely one of my favorite parks because it literally felt like you were in a jungle the entire time, like you’re not even in Orlando anymore–it was so cool.
The first thing we did was see a little 10 minute show called It’s Tough to be a Bug! This is a short little thing to go and watch but it is SO cute and you can tell they put a lot of time and effort to make this experience fun! If you have some extra time to kill, I’d definitely recommend checking it out. For our fast passes, we did the Kilimanjaro Safaris ride (which I LOVED), the Na’vi River Journey, and Expedition Everest. Honestly, ALL of these rides were awesome. The Na’vi River Journey was a slow moving ride that had lots of exciting things to look at along the way. Expedition Everest is a really fun roller coaster! And of course, we HAD to ride the new Avatar ride, Flight of Passage. We had heard SO many amazing things about this ride, but I’ll be honest–we were skeptical. We just couldn’t believe that ONE ride would be worth a 3+ hour wait. Let me tell you–it was. I can’t even begin to describe how much we loved this ride. It amazes me that there is technology out there that allows us to truly feel like we are flying and experiencing places we could never see on our own. It’s insane and I DEFINITELY recommend riding this ride. We were able to catch an 80 minute wait right at lunch time and we rode it again around 8pm and only waited about 45 minutes when guests started leaving the park due to a rain storm.
Another fun treat we tried here is the Night Blossom (or Rum Blossom depending on if you want alcohol in it), which is such a fun, colorful drink with Boba balls in it. It was so delicious and refreshing, we loved it!
Right before dinner we saw the Festival of the Lion King show because many people recommended for us to watch it. It was amazing as well–the costumes and props for this show are absolutely AMAZING. We had so much fun watching it. For dinner this night, we had reservations at Tusker House, which is a character dining option that has a buffet featuring African inspired foods. It was such a fun experience dancing here with some of the characters like Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy! The food was really good as well and super unique, which we appreciated.
On day five, we also took advantage of the “Extra Magic Hours” at Epcot, which is just a couple extra hours that the parks are open for guests staying in a Disney resort. So we hopped over there from 9-10pm to ride Soarin’ one more time. This was pretty cool but afterwards we were EXHAUSTED. On this day in particular, we walked a total of 21,000 steps each. Honestly, the word exhausted was an understatement.
DAY SIX: POOL DAY & DINNER
-Breakfast @ Waldorf Astoria
–Pool day with cabana @ Waldorf Astoria (10/10)
-Dinner @ Victoria & Albert’s (11/10)–SO GOOD
After our super long day the day before, we were SO happy to have a nice, relaxing pool day at the Waldorf Astoria. We rented a cabana for the day, which was perfect, because they brought out fruit infused waters, a fruit tray, nice lounge chairs, and plenty of towels. It also had a TV inside the cabana and we loved having shelter from the little rain showers that would happen every so often. The pool area was so peaceful–there weren’t a lot of people there and not many kids at all, so it wasn’t super loud or distracting, which was exactly what we needed.
After spending our day at the pool, we got ready for our nicest dinner of the trip at Victoria & Albert’s. First of all, I do want to say that this dining experience is a SPLURGE. My mom saw so many amazing reviews about it while she was planning our trip and wanted to take Amber and I there to see what it was all about. I’ll admit, this was another one of those things that I thought “There is NO WAY this food could be worth that price,” but again, I was wrong. I kid you not, every single thing I ate from this restaurant was INCREDIBLE. Even things I wasn’t so sure about I ended up loving. It was a 9 course tasting menu and there was an optional wine pairing that my mom and I ended up doing as well. The staff were phenomenal and some of the nicest people I’ve met, truly. I really can’t say enough good things about it. I’ve attached some pictures of a few of the different courses, but guys, seriously, I will be dreaming of all of these delicious things probably for the rest of my life. SO YUM. Because there are so many courses for this dinner, it takes a super long time. We got out around 9:30 or 10pm if I remember correctly, but we had an absolute BLAST. We had the best time just talking and laughing and trying good foods. After dinner, we went back to the hotel to get some rest for Magic Kingdom day tomorrow.
DAY SEVEN: MAGIC KINGDOM
-No breakfast
-Early lunch @ Be Our Guest Restaurant (9/10)
-Fast Passes: Meet Cinderella & Elena (8/10), Peter Pan’s Flight (8/10), and Space Mountain (9/10)
-Fast Pass Recommendations: Try to get Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!
-Snacks/Treats: Mickey Pretzel @ Lunching Pad (7/10), Mickey Rice Crispy @ Main Street Bakery (10/10), and Pineapple Dole Whip from Aloha Isle (10/10)
-Dinner @ The Plaza Restaurant (7/10)
–Fireworks Show (10/10)
Lastly on our trip, we of course HAD to spend a full day in Magic Kingdom. We arrived at 10:30am to make it to our fast pass to meet Cinderella & Elena. Meeting the characters and princesses is always a fun thing to do even if you’re an adult. It’s so cool how they stay in character the entire time and seem so realistic in person.
After that, we had lunch reservations at Be Our Guest. This was also a super fun experience just because it really felt like you were right inside of the Beauty & the Beast castle. I’ve heard it’s even better for dinner, so if you can, definitely try to snag a dinner reservation there first! Our other fast passes for Magic Kingdom were Peter Pan’s Flight and Space Mountain. I really enjoyed both of these. We also rode the Haunted Mansion, the Dumbo ride, the Flying Carpets, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. There is SO MUCH to do in Magic Kingdom that there truly is no way you could do it all. Some popular rides we weren’t able to catch are Splash Mountain and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
Magic Kingdom is so fun to just walk around and see all of the gorgeous decorations, watch the parade, and find fun Disney themed treats and snacks along the way. We did get a change to try Dole Whip from Aloha Isle and it was AMAZING and so refreshing. Throughout the day we also split a Mickey pretzel (because you can’t NOT get a Mickey pretzel while in Disney) and I got one of those super cute Mickey rice crispy treats to take home with me (it tasted amazing, too, by the way)!
We grabbed a late dinner at The Plaza Restaurant, which is right on Main Street, so it was the perfect location to quickly run out and watch the fireworks show after dinner. The Magic Kingdom Fireworks show is absolutely breathtaking. Again, it’s one of those things that had me SO amazed just standing there wondering how the heck anyone can do this. It was so beautiful and so much fun to watch. After the fireworks show, we had to quickly make our way out of the park and back to our hotel to get our bags. Since our hotel in Orlando was about 40 minutes from the airport, we decided to drive to a hotel closer by for our last night. So once we were able to get back to the Waldorf and grab our bags, we drove 30 minutes to a closer hotel and stayed the night there.
DAY EIGHT: RETURN HOME
Our flight left at about 6am, so it was an early morning for us. We basically rolled out of bed at 4am and went to the airport. Thankfully, we had no troubles at the airport and a very safe flight. Our trip was so amazing, but really tiring, so we were happy to use our return home day as a rest day.
DISNEY YOUTUBE VIDEOS:
