TsaoShin

My sister was scheduled to visit me and Tsao between her school semesters with her girlfriend, so in a last minute decision, Tsao and I decided to surprise them with a trip to Walt Disney World!

There were a ton of choices to make. First of all, whether to drive or fly. If we drove, we’d have to set aside two extra days (one for each way) for the drives up and down. If we flew, we’d have to stay for more days in order to maximize our value. After much debating and asking friends, we chose to fly.

Our next big choice was where to stay. Since we were booking at the last minute, the resort rates within the park were pretty steep, but we were determined to spend our nights on the park property.

There are multiple benefits for this. We wouldn’t need to rent a car to travel from the airport to the resort since there is a bus that travels between them for free for resort guests. There are buses inside the resort that will take you from the resort to any of the parks. The parks are open longer on select days only for resort guests!

We decided to go with one of their middle tier resorts, the Caribbean Beach, to avoid most of the families full of kids at the most reasonable price.

We chose to stay for four full days with the additional Park Hopper option. We also opted for a fifth day, the day we flew in. The price for the additional day was so low, that even if we didn’t utilize it, it wouldn’t matter.

We made sure to schedule our days to maximize our resort guest extra hours.

Last time we went to Disney World, I wanted to write a detailed review of everything we did. That ended up never being finished, so this time I’m being less ambitious. Here is a log I kept of all the rides we rode on each day, in order:

Friday

Magic Kingdom

• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Ate at Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn & Café
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
• Splash Mountain
• Haunted Mansion
• it’s a small world
• Mickey’s PhilharMagic
• Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
• Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor
• Stitch’s Great Escape!
• Space Mountain

Saturday

Hollywood Studios

• Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror Ate at ’50s Prime Time Café
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
• The Magic of Disney Animation
• Journey into Narnia
• Studio Backlot Tour
• Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure
• Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
• Star Tours
• Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!
• Jim Henson’s Muppet*Vision 3D
• Toy Story Midway Mania!
• Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream

Sunday

Animal Kingdom

• Kilimanjaro Safaris
• Pangani Forest Exploration Trail
• Wildlife Express Train
• Habitat Habit!
• Conservation Station
• Affection Section
• Finding Nemo - The Musical
• Ate at Anandapur Yak & Yeti Restaurant
• Expedition Everest
• DINOSAUR
• Primeval Whirl
• It’s Tough to Be a Bug!
• Festival of the Lion King
• Photo op with Lilo & Stitch
• Expedition Everest
• DINOSAUR
• Maharajah Jungle Trek
• Expedition Everest

EPCOT

• Some of the World Showcase, from Mexico through China

Magic Kingdom

• Peter Pan’s Flight
• Prince Charming Regal Carrousel
• Snow White’s Scary Adventures
• Dumbo’s Flying Circus
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
• Tomorrowland Speedway

Monday

EPCOT

• Ate at Electric Umbrella
• Universe of Energy
• Mission: SPACE (Green line)
• The Seas with Nemo & Friends
• Test Track
• Soarin’
• Living with the Land
• Spaceship Earth
• The entire World Showcase in counter-clockwise direction
• Ate in Morocco

Downtown Disney

• Various shops
• Ate at Planet Hollywood

Tuesday

Magic Kingdom

• Tomorrowland Transit Authority
• Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress
• Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
• Astro Orbiter
• Ate at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe
• The Barnstormer at Goofy’s Wiseacre Farm
• Mickey Mouse’s House
• Space Mountain
• The Hall of Presidents
• Country Bear Jamboree
• The Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management)
• Walt Disney World Railroad
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
• Jungle Cruise
• Ate at Liberty Tree Tavern
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Mad Tea Party
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

There are a lot of great rides here. Aside from all the classics that I love in the Magic Kingdom, my favorite new Disney attractions are: Expedition Everest, Kilimanjaro Safaris, DINOSAUR, It’s Tough to Be a Bug!, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Star Tours, and Toy Story Midway Mania!

On Tuesday, when we entered the Magic Kingdom, our tickets were processed manually instead of through the machines. This created a problem when we used the Fastpass ticket machines in Frontierland and Adventureland. They recognized that our tickets hadn’t been processed and refused to give us a ticket. We exploited the situation by giving confused looks to the machine attendant, who would have Fastpasses printed for us. We would then run over to other Fastpass enabled rides and collect more tickets, so we could skip the lines to a few rides in a row. Awesome!

Make sure you figure out in advance which restaurants have air conditioning that you would care to eat in. For the most part, the lowest tier restaurants will be outdoor numbers, but there are a few cheap places with A/C. In EPCOT, you can go to the Electric Umbrella in Future World. In the Magic Kingdom, you can try Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café, but expect the line to be out the door if you want go during standard eating hours.

We nicknamed EPCOT to ‘CRAPCOT’. There’s very little actual fun to be had here because it’s primarily stores and shops. We even heard one of the Disney employees remark, “Do you know what EPCOT stands for? ‘Empty Pockets? Come Other Time’”. There are a couple really nice spots in the World Showcase, like Mexico and the buildings in China and Japan, but they are pretty limited. They really need to step up their efforts in edutainment in this whole zone. Future World has incredible lines, especially for Soarin’ (which is really cool) and Fast Track (which is ho hum).

It was worth upgrading to the middle tier hotel resort. When we got on the bus at the airport, it was packed with loud, obnoxious children. When we arrived at our hotel, only our group and another got off the bus; the noisy families were hauled off to the bottom tier hotels that were on our bus’s route. Our suspicions were correct!

We had a blast. I’m already looking forward to the next time we visit.

Tsao took a bunch of photos that you can check out here.