Like A Vergin

We woke up early on our final day of magic! Got dressed, ate breakfast, hopped on an empty bus, and rope dropped the Magic Kindgdom! When we entered the gates, all the characters were up on the platform above the gate, to greet everyone in their party attire! It was awesome to see them and wave to them! We knew we wanted to hop on the Peter Pan ride right away, since we knew it would be a high time ride as the day went on. We waited to get through the castle, since the park wasn’t technically even open yet. We got some fun pictures with the Castle with hardly anyone around, and waited patiently until they opened the ropes to let us into the rest of the park! We rode Peter pan first, and it was so fun! Such a great story brought to life, even the queue line was awesome to walk through, we moved through the line quickly, we maybe waited 10 minutes to get on! From there we went to the Philharmagic show, and it was nice to be inside with air conditioning! Next we walked through the Beauty and the Beast area, and stopped in to Gaston’s Tavern to try out a cinnamon roll. I found this recipe online and have been making these cinnamon rolls for awhile now, so I wanted to see how it compared to what I’ve been making! We ordered a giant cinnamon roll and a grey stuff cupcake. The cinnamon roll didn’t live up to my standards, honestly. It was a little dry, which made it easy to share and eat with our hands, but not the best cinnamon roll. The grey stuff cupcake was awesome! I liked that much better!

We kept walking on, and hopped in line for the little mermaid ride, which we walked right on! There was no line, but we did stop and appreciate the artwork and fun stuff in the queue line. I loved the ride, little mermaid has been a favorite of mine since i was very young! From that ride, next up was the Storybook Circus area where we rode Barnstormer which was a cute little coaster, and then for my husbands favorite Disney character’s ride, Dumbo! We waited barely 5 minutes to get on Dumbo, then looked around under the big top souvenir shop! It was fun to relive the movie in ride form! We enjoyed it very much! After Dumbo, we saw the Raceway, so we got in line for it! We waited about 15 minutes for this one! The kids loved the fact that they could drive! I was nervous, but I let my daughter have the wheel! I helped with the pedals since she couldnt’ reach them very well. We laughed and joked that this would be our reality soon! My son drove my husband and he said my son did a great job! When we exited the raceway, the kids wanted to get their “drivers licenses”. They had booths, you went in, paid, it took your photo and you got a hard printed “license”. They loved this, my son still has his in his wallet!

Once we left the raceway, we came upon the next area which was my favorite area of all the park! Alice in Wonderland!! We rode the teacups which was dizzying fun, then stopped at the Cheshire Cafe! We shared a cheshire cat tail and a curiouser and curiouser slushie. They were good, and the slushie was refreshing! I loved seeing the cheshire cat and mad hatter gold statues! I even took some pictures with them and my tattoos. I have tattoos of the cheshire cat and Alice. They fit right in! If I could change anything, it would be to have more Alice in Wonderland theme in the park, it’s my absolute favorite! 

We moved into Tomorrowland, and spent a good amount of time getting to all the rides there! First up was Space Mountain, which was cool! My son loves space, so it was one of his favorites! After we got off Space Mountain, we were all a bit hungry so we stopped and got a foot long hot dog, popcorn, and a mickey pretzel and shared them as a snacky kind of lunch. We had a lot to do on our last day, so it was a working lunch for sure! I grabbed myself a coffee, and we relaxed for a bit before getting on the people mover. It was a nice, relaxing ride! Next we did the Astro Orbiter, which was a bit high up for my liking. In our area, we have Six Flags, and there’s a ride there that’s similar, but way scarier and goes much faster, so Astro Orbiter was much more tame, and I appreciated that! We hopped in line for the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. They hadn’t opened it yet, and weren’t sure if they were going to open it, but we knew we were making good time on this day so we hung around in the pretend line people had started, and within a few minutes they had opened the doors and we waited maybe 10 minutes before they let us into the theatre. The show was hilarious, we laughed a lot! If you can do this one, i recommend it! The Carosel of Progress was up next! People say this one has to go, but I enjoyed it. I liked the ingenuity and detail of it, and the kids were a bit bored, but again, any break from the heat is a win in my book! Also, we basically had the whole place to ourselves! And hey, there IS a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day!

We knew we were getting close to our reservation time at Cinderella’s Castle, so we started heading that way, and caught a cavlacde with Mickey and friends! Even though we had seen it a couple times already, the excitement of seeing the characters never got old for me! We arrived a few minutes early to our reservation, but the sweet cast members at Cinderella’s Royal Table let us go in and take some pictures in the foyer while we waited for our hostess to walk us up to our table. Coming up the stairs into the dining area was so magical! We got sat right by the window looking out into the park and our server was phenomenal! My hubby got the champagne flight and I got a sweet cocktail flight. My son had duck meatballs for dinner, and the rest of us had steaks. The desserts were very good too! The brought my son some sherbet since they weren’t sure if the desserts were completely peanut safe so better safe than sorry! We got to see Cinderella twice while we were there and even though she couldn’t move through the dining room, it was so magical to see her in person, in her own castle! I think this was my favorite dining experience of all! The magic was so real in that room! 

As we exited the most magical meal of our lives, we tried our hands at the sword in the stone. None of us were able to pull it, but we tried our best! We hopped on the carousel and it was a nice easy ride after a heavy meal! Our last ride in Magic Kingdom was Winnie the Pooh ride. It was a cute ride, telling a Pooh story. The best part was the line, they had lots of interactive things to do and see! We waited about 20 minutes for the ride. Once we wrapped up our rides for the day, we hit the shops one last time and each kid picked out their last pin and souvenir. We talked about staying for one last fireworks show, but the kids were exhausted and asked if we could go back to the resort and rest. I could tell they were tired, and we wanted to end on a high note so we hopped on the bus and headed back.

While on the bus back, I decided I wasn’t done with my vacation. I told my family I was going to hop on a bus to Disney Springs and get one last hoorah, for me. I planned the heck out of this vacation, and I wanted just a little more Disney magic. So my hubby and kids went off to the room and I caught a bus to Springs. I made a couple of friends on the bus, so we got a drink together in Disney Springs, then I was off! I got some poutine to snack on while I walked around. I stopped in the World of Disney store, got a couple of last souvenirs for myself and the kids, went into a couple other stores for fun, listened to some live music with fireworks in the background, and stopped in Amorettes bakery. I had heard a lot about it, so it was fun to check it out! I got myself a little pumpkin pastry, then headed to the buses. It was about 10:45pm, and Springs closed at 11.

I was the only one on the bus back to the resort. The driver, Tim, was so sweet. We chatted a little, I told him this was the most magical time of my life. That we had experienced such magic, such wonderfulness, that my face hurt from smiling so much the last 10 days. I said I wasn’t sure if we’d ever be able to come back, and that’s when I started sobbing. He was so nice, told me that he’d “see us real soon”, then turned on the music for Coronado Springs so that I could sob as loud as I wanted. Or it made him uncomfortable, I’ll never know. So for the next 5 minutes or so, I cried into my hands while listening to the music that signified our home for 10 days. Disney truly felt like home while we were there. When we arrived to my stop, Tim got out, I tried to tip him and he said “no ma’am, put that into your Disney savings, for next time.” He waited until I disappeared into the Casitas before he pulled off. Sweet little angel! I walked into our room, the kids were sound asleep, and my poor husband was throwing up in the bathroom. I figured it was because we were flying the next morning and that’s not his favorite thing. We found out recently that champagne really upsets his stomach, so now I’m sure it was a combination of both. This day was the best! We squeezed every last ounce of Disney out of this day! 

Breakfast - in the room, oatmeal, fruit, coffee, tea and water.

Lunch - Snacks at the park.

Dinner - Cinderellas Castle! This meal was prepaid, so all we paid for was our adult drinks and tip.

Snacks - Packed lots, we knew we would be there all day! Goldfish, oranges, grapes, chips, cheezits!

Rides - Peter Pan, Philarmagic, Little Mermaid, Barnstormer, Dumbo, Raceway, Tea Cups, Space Mountain, People Mover, Astro Orbiter, Monsters Inc. Scare Floor, Carousel of Progress, Carousel, Winnie the Pooh.

Extras - Pins, and some last minute little souvenirs.

Transportation - Buses!

Funds - This day cost us about $300. 

Weather - Weather was perfect! In the high 80s, partly cloudy and not a drop of rain!

Today we didn’t set an alarm! We slept to our hearts content! When we woke up, I sorted through all of our clothes, and souvenirs and got us about 90% packed! Trying to find room for everything was a challenge, and we left tons of stuff behind! The kids wrote some postcards to friends while we ate some breakfast in the room. We got our swimming gear on, and went to get our last swims in! While we were out, the resort had to do a safety check so it was great timing! We went to the dig site water park first, got some snacks for lunch and had tons of fun! They were hosting some trivia by the pool so that was fun to answer some questions! They also set up some poolside games that the kids played, and they won rubber ducks! We left from the Dig Site, then went over to the Casitas salt water pool. While we were there my kids made friends with the only other girl in the pool, and I made friends with her mom! We still text to this day! While we were swimming it started to rain, and then we were joined by ducks in the pool! It was so funny, and we enjoyed the salt water and warm rain at the pool that evening! Matt brought his laptop down and worked on homework poolside. After we finished up at our salt water pool, we all showered and got dressed. 

Then we decided to explore our beautiful resort since it was our last chance to appreciate the place we were staying! Coronado Springs is an incredibly beautiful place to be! The kids took their droids on a walk, and my daughters ran out of batteries so we stopped in the Panchito shop in the Tower. I recommend bringing batteries with you! a 6 Pack ran us about $18! We checked out the pin wall one last time, and got a couple that we wanted before we left. While we were at Panchito’s, we also got some stamps so that we could stop by the mailbox and mail out our postcards! It was fun to look for the mailbox and put the cards in! We stopped at the front desk to ask about the magic express to the airport, and got our paperwork saying we could board the bus! We mobile ordered our dinner from Three Bridges (I had to have that steak chimichurri one last time!), took pictures around the tower, then headed to Three Bridges to pick up our to go order and headed back to our room to eat dinner and finish packing!

I also took some time at the end of the night to make little “pixie dust packs” to put around the resort on our way out on Saturday. I put the remaining stickers, toys, tattoos and glow sticks into sandwich bags, and put a little note that said “All the world is made of faith and trust and PIXIE DUST!” We enjoyed our relaxing day today! We snacked on more of our food in the room, watched TV, and prepared for our last magical day at Magic Kingdom the next morning! 

Breakfast - in the room, oatmeal, fruit, coffee, tea and water.

Lunch - Snacks at the pool and food from our room, it was a snacky kind of day!

Dinner - Three Bridges and what we had in our room!

Snacks - No snacks but we did grab water bottles from our room since they were expensive at the food stands!

Rides - Pool slide.

Extras - Pins, batteries, and stamps.

Transportation - Just our legs today!

Funds - This day cost us about $100. Just money for food and a couple things from the shop.

Weather - Hot and rainy, but we made the best of it!

Things we packed -  Magic bands, cash and IDs! Just for around the resort!

We slept in this morning after a long day at Hollywood Studios. We woke up about 9am, got dressed and headed to Chef Mickey’s! We hopped on the bus to Magic Kingdom, then walked over to the Contemporary hotel. It was such a fun place to have brunch, and see all the characters! One complaint was that, they were doing construction, so it was hard to hear the music and get fully immersed in the experience. However, it was just a little hiccup in the grand scheme of being at the Contemporary and seeing Mickey and friends in chef coats. Being a chef myself, I really wanted to do this one! The food was good, my favorite was the cheesy hash brown casserole! Once we wrapped up brunch, we went out to the bus stop at Contemporary and hopped a bus to Disney Springs! It was our shopping day! 

We gave the kids each $100 to spend on whatever stuff they wanted to get while at Disney Springs. We bee-lined for the World of Disney store. It’s the largest Disney store in the world, and rumor had it, they had all the 50th anniversary merch! We were bummed because they were out of the 50th anniversary Mickey and Minnie, but we found Pluto, Chip, and Dale! I also got myself a 50th anniversary Loungefly backpack, and Aubrey found a baby Yoda blanket she really liked. 

After the Disney store, we found the lego store! It was neat, and we didn’t know you could make an appointment to create yourself as a lego, so next time we will make sure we do that because it looked fun! My daughter got herself a safari lego set, and my son got himself a Lego mug that said “they didn’t have my name” because we couldn’t find Charlie on any of the mugs. That was funny to us because Charlie is a pretty common name! We left the Lego store and wandered around, in and out of stores. We found a couple of Star Wars stores and a Marvel store. We got some pins for the kids aunt and uncle and for themselves as well. A place I really wanted to see and try was Gideon’s bakehouse. There was a virtual queue at the time, but I walked into line and only waited 10 minutes before entering the shop. It was SO cool in there! I tried a pistachio cookie, which was my favorite, a chocolate chip cookie, which was good, and one of their yummy coffees! I let aubrey try it, and it was her first time trying coffee. She said she liked it, but prefers tea. There were a couple other bake shops and patisserie’s I tried items from and I loved them all! I can’t remember the last time I ate so many sweets in a day! We also found a nut free bakery in Disney Springs! The sign outside says “Bakery NYC”. The ladies there were so kind, and my son told them about his deadly allergy and how much he appreciated them offering things that he can eat! We bought a cookie sandwich and some brownie bites from them, and the sweet ladies threw in a cake parfait and an extra cookie for him! If we ever get to go back to Disney, we will absolutely be back! 

We stumbled upon a Coca-Cola store, and my husband has always loved coke so we knew we had to check it out! It was 2 floors of coke merch, then the third floor was a coke bar. We got the biggest sampler you could buy and tried coca-cola products from all over the world! Most of them were so disgusting and I’m not a huge soda fan as it is, but it was a fun activity and a nice way to cool off and refresh! My hubby got some coke merch while we explored the shop as well. We bounced around more shops, found a christmas store, a huge pin shop where the kids got some items, and then we stopped at Earl of Sandwich for lunch! It was good and the cheapest meal we had our whole trip! $35 for all 4 of us to get a sandwich, chips and a drink! 10/10!! I had read about a photo studio at DS that if you had the memory maker for Disney, you could get a free photo shoot there! So we found it and even though we had to wear our masks inside, we still got some great photos and now we have the pandemic commemorated in these photos! The photographers were so kind and we didn’t even have to wait, we walked right in! Now that masks are optional, I highly recommend stopping here and getting tons of photos done! 

We were winding down our day, the kids were hot and tired and we had walked the whole place! On our way toward the exit, I had a feeling that I wanted to check the Disney store one last time for the 50th anniversary Mickey and Minnie. So my son and I decided to check, and they were restocked!! They were flying off the shelves, so we grabbed one of each, squealed with joy, checked out in the app and ran to my hubby and daughter screaming “WE FOUND THEM!!!” They were so excited! What luck and Disney magic!! As we headed out, we stopped by the Luxury of Time jewelry store for our free necklaces! Yes, free necklaces! If they have them in stock, be sure to get your children one! They have leather bracelets for the boys too! It’s first come first serve and they do run out, but hey it doesn’t hurt to ask! 

Once we got back to the resort, each of us showered, and ate the food we had in our room, since we were leaving soon and had to eat as much of it as we could! It was a great, chill evening of looking through all the things we had gotten! Then my son and daughter gave me a pin they had secretly purchased that said “World’s Best Mom”. Such a sweet surprise, I have such great and thoughtful kiddos! It was a perfect ending to a really fun day! 

Breakfast - in the room, oatmeal, fruit, coffee, tea and water

Lunch - Earl of Sandwich! Good sandwiches and soup! And the price was GREAT!

Dinner - In our room. Soup, fruits, veggies, cereal.

Snacks - We packed light today! Threw a few snacks in our backpack, and water bottles!

Rides - The bus.

Extras - Each kid got money to spend, and Matt and I splurged on some fun stuff too!

Transportation - Bus to contemporary, then from contemporary to springs, springs back to our resort!

Funds - this day cost us about $700 with our Chef Mickey’s reservation, cash for the kids, lunch and our mini shopping spree!

Weather - Nice and hot! Not as bad as the other days, but it may be because we were mostly in air conditioned stores all day!

Things we packed -  Magic bands, masks, extra masks, cash and IDs, and a couple snacks. We didn’t pack heavy today!

This was another morning we had to get up super early to get our reservation for the Rise of the Resistance ride at Hollywood Studios. My hubby and I logged on and had our phones ready to get our boarding pass. At exactly 7 am, we clicked and he managed to get us board group 2!!!! I couldn’t believe it! So we got everyone up and ready and out to the busses! We arrived before rope drop, and because we had a reservation they let us go in! We ran to the back of the park to the Star Wars area, and it was so awesome! I personally have never watched a Star Wars movie, but I know enough to know some characters! The full immersion was so fascinating and beautiful! We walked right onto Rise of the Resistance, and had a whole car to ourselves! I didn’t really understand fully what was going on, but it was so amazing to ride this ride that I didn’t mind, I enjoyed this ride very much! Right after exiting ROR, we ran over to the Millenium Falcon, Smuggler’s Run ride! We waited about 15 minutes in line and then got to board the Falcon! The kids drove, while Matt and I shot the bad guys! I’m not sure we did very well but it was another super fun experience! 

Once we recovered from the awesomeness of these 2 rides, we skipped over to the Tower of Terror, after getting some pictures taken by the photographers in the Star Wars and Tower of Terror area! The photographers in Hollywood Studios were the best of all the parks! They put extra flair into their jobs and it made all the difference! Riding the Tower of Terror was so fun, and ended up being my daughter's favorite ride! After this ride, we were very hot so we stopped at the Walt Disney Gallery and theatre. One note about this park is that there is hardly any shade. So on a hot day, make sure you work a lot of breaks and indoor activities into your schedule! Drink tons of water, Gatorade, and the occasional pick me up of coffee or soda! We used our cooling towels the entire day this day, and reapplied tons of sunscreen! After the theatre, we walked over to Toy Story land, only to find that the rides in this area were very long waits, so we decided to find a spot to sit and eat our lunch. I packed sandwiches, fruit, cheese sticks and chips for us. We sat down, ate, and as we were finishing, I checked the app and the Slinky Dog coaster was down to 40 minutes (it was 120 minutes a few minutes prior!). We cleaned up fast and ran on over to Slinky Dog, the wait posted was 50 minutes and we waited just about that. It was the longest time we waited for a ride the whole vacation so I can’t complain! We had the play app on our phones, so we played games in line and that made the time go way faster! The coaster was fun! Next time I definitely want to ride it at night when it’s all lit up! From there, we got in line for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, waited about 20 minutes. A big reason we had to wait was because they had to remove someone from the ride, since they refused to put their mask up during the ride. We saw some “maintenance workers” escorting a man who was being loud about the mask rules, but it was so crazy to see them straight face walk him out through a secret exit in the wall! Disney secret service doesn’t mess around!! I think witnessing that was cooler than some of the rides! Anyway, we got on the ride and it was fun! You are equipt with a laser cannon, and your goal is to blast all the targets that pop up throughout the game. You can also control the cruiser you’re riding in to turn a full 360 degrees! Being a junior space ranger was an adventure we all enjoyed! Toy Story Mania was next and it was so fun! You have a little ball launching toy gun and you get to shoot things and compete with others on the ride. It was like a real life video game! Next, the kids got in line for the Alien Swirling Saucers, they waited about 10 minutes, got on the ride, then it had an emergency stop so they had to switch sides (there’s 2 sides of the ride). They got on and said it was fun! After all the spinning around on the other rides in Toy Story land, my hubby and I decided to skip this one. It’s certainly a perk to have older kids, they ride some of the less desirable rides without a parent!

Once we accomplished all of the Toy Story area, we wanted to find an indoor activity since it was so hot! We came across the Lightening McQueen’s Racing Academy, so we went in, sat down, and enjoyed the show! It was super cute, and even though my kids are a little too old for Cars, getting out of the sun and heat, and sitting down was really nice. Once we finished up at McQueen’s, my son and husband wanted to go on the Rock n Rollercoaster (before dinner!) so we walked on over there. The boys rode the coaster while my daughter and I had a drink, and snack and a little rest. We took off our shoes and relaxed for the half hour it took them to ride! 

We then decided it was dinner time! So we found ABC Commissary! It was a decent, cheaper dinner, and I got a really yummy dessert from there! After dinner, we noticed the next Muppets show was starting soon so we got in line and watched the show! It was just like I remember it as a kid, which was so cute and comforting knowing it’s still there and going strong! Another ride we knew we really wanted to do was the Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. As we were walking up, the ride shut down and the app said they weren’t sure when it would be back up and running, so we were a little bummed, but also wanted to stay in that area in case it opened back up. So we found a popcorn stand that had the Millenium Falcon popcorn bucket, and got that along with a BB8 cup for my daughter. As we were finishing up there we noticed people filtering into the Railway ride so we RAN to it and got in line. The wait was about 25 minutes, which was great because before it shut down, the time posted was 150 minutes! While in line, the family in front of us had a little guy with a nose bleed. We were prepared with wipes and tons of tissues, so it made the wait go fast because we were trying to help them out and chatting with them along the way. Their group had littles and they were getting whiney and I remembered I had brought with some “pixie dust” for handing out at the park, so our glow sticks, stickers and little toys made them very happy! I hope it made their day a little better! Anyway, we got on the ride and it was so cute! It was like being in an episode of the show! My favorite part was the dance class where you sway back and forth to the music! It was one of my favorite rides of the whole trip! 

When we exited the Railway ride, we went to our reservation at Oga’s Cantina where we ordered some fun drinks! I ordered the Fuzzy Tauntaun and it was the weirdest thing I’ve ever drank! The drink itself was so tasty, but the Buzz foam was intense! It made my lips, mouth and throat super cold, then it was tingly, then numb for like 15 minutes! It was a crazy sensation! My hubby got the Yub Nub drink in the souvenir mug, then they brought him out a new one in the package when we checked out. He was so excited! The kids got some fun drinks too! Hyperdrive and Jabba Juice, they loved them very much and actually finished them! Which we all had to finish our drinks, it costed way more than anyone should ever spend on drinks, but it’s Disney! After Oga’s, we went to the kids appointments at the Droid Depot, where they got to build their very own droids! My son chose the R2D2 model and my daughter decided on a BB8 model. They had so much fun choosing their colors and models, then they got to build them with a cast member, he was so helpful and patient with them! The kids loved the whole experience! Once we finished up at the Depot, we ran back to the main area because they had a light and fireworks show (Wonderful World of Animation) on the Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway building. We sat on the ground and enjoyed the cooled off evening together, watching the show. It was a wonderful show, and I loved all the shows Disney puts on in the parks because, for me, it gave me a solid few minutes to take it all in and appreciate that we made this happen for our family. That we were sitting in the happiest, most magical place on the planet. 

After the show ended, cast members were directing people towards the exits, because the park was now closed. But we had a reservation for Savi’s Workshop Light Saver Building! My hubby’s reservation was at 9:45pm so we got to wander around the nearly empty park to take pictures, and see things up close with no crowds! We found the droid play area, so the kids played with some other kids and their droids too! I loved that little play space, Disney thinks of everything! Once they called his time slot, my husband and son went in to build the light saber. They were only allowing one guest in with the person who had the reservation, and my son is way more into Star Wars than my daughter so they went in together. While they went in, my daughter and I wandered around and looked at all the amazing art work, we talked about how fun this trip had been so far and how we could live here forever! We sat down, had a snack and some water while we waited at the exit area for the boys to come out. While we waited I got to talking to one of the cast members, we talked about how he lives on campus with some roommates, and his job at Disney. We chatted a good 20 minutes, and right before the boys came out, he told us to run over to the Millenium Falcon and get cool pictures with our light saber, and take our time leaving because it was our once in a lifetime trip. He made the end of our long, amazing day, so enjoyable. We took as many pictures as we could, and made our way to the exit. The park was so quiet, and empty and what a great way to close such a spectacular day! We got to the busses, got back to the resort, showered and everyone fell asleep right away!

Breakfast - in the room, oatmeal, fruit, coffee, tea and water.

Lunch - I packed sandwiches, fruit, chips, and fresh veggies. 

Dinner - ABC Commissary. We all ate for $50!

Snacks - We packed tons of snacks, and did a Joeffry coffee, plus the popcorn bucket and BB8 drink.

Rides - Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror, Rise of the Resistance, Slinky Dog Dash, Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster, Muppet Vision 3D, Smugglers Run, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Lightening McQueen Racing Academy, Alien Swirling Saucers, and Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin.

Extras - Pressed pennies, 2 droids, a light saber, and a couple pins.

Transportation - Buses, and the Millenium Falcon!

Funds - This day was EXPENSIVE! With food, droids, a light saber, Oga’s, and a couple pins, this day costed about $700.

Weather - Hot and humid, this was the hottest day for us! Mostly because there is seriously no shade in this park! The only shade was in buildings, so make sure you plan for that!

Things we packed -  Husband and kids each had a backpack, and I had my fanny pack. Hubby and I took turns carrying the backpack, it was heavy until after lunch. Magic bands, masks, extra masks, spare clothes, sunscreens, snacks, water bottles, gatorade, cooling towels, cash, IDs, tissues, sanitizer wipes, hand sanitizer, pins and lanyards (for pin trading, this was also an option for each of us every day we were in the parks), portable chargers, charging cables.

Day 6 - Animal Kingdom

This was a day I knew we would have to get up early! I wanted to rope-drop Animal Kingdom because in my research, I heard that when the park opens to go directly to the safari ride. So that’s exactly what we did! I got up at 6:30am to get ready and set us up for the day, got the kids and hubby up, ready, and we got to the busses right about 7am! We arrived at animal kingdom early, waited for a short time, then when they opened the gates we RAN to the safari in the back of the park! We were on the first 3 rides out to the safari. It was worth every second! We heard the lions roaring, the animals were very active, and we even got chased by some gazelle-looking creature who thought we were the feeding truck. We saw rhinos crossing our path, and even a little baby rhino! The animals were very active, because I believe feeding time is at 8am! We saw the feeding trucks around the grounds, it was so cool! So if you get the chance to visit Animal Kingdom, RUN to the safari first thing! You won’t be disappointed! After we got done with the safari, we ran to Expedition Everest. There was no line, so we rode it twice! We loved it! On our way over a bridge, we saw a Pocahantas water cavalcade which was super special, I’m pretty sure the other parks don’t have water cavalcades! We spent some time in Dino-land. It seemed a little out of place and outdated, but we played a couple games, the kids rode the triceratops ride, and we all rode the ride, Dinosaur. We got to time travel and return a dinosaur to its proper era! It was a fun ride! From there we made our way over to the bird show, where my son got chosen to participate in the show! He got to launch a grape for a bird to catch! We really enjoyed seeing all the birds in action! After the bird show, we stopped for lunch at the Flame Tree BBQ. It was good food and the price was decent. Once we finished lunch, we found a stand that had someone teaching facts about butterflies and bugs. My son loves this kind of thing so he started listening and asking questions and the attendant let him know that he could get his Wilderness Explorer badges in a booklet, and that there were many stands all around the park where he could learn and collect the badges! He was so excited and I wish this was something we knew about and started right when we got to the park! My son then was on a mission to get them all, he was short 6 at the end of the day. We went to guest services at the front of the park and I asked if we could cheat and finish the book since this was a once-in-a-lifetime trip and the lady there was so nice, took his book and gave him the stickers to fill it! She was so great and so helpful! In between Wilderness Explorer badges, we hopped on the Pandora ride, Avatar Flight of Passage, and holy moly that was my favorite ride in Disney! It was AMAZING! It felt like we were really riding the creatures throughout Pandora! 10/10 highly recommend it! We took the Asia path through the Tiger enclosures. The tigers were sleeping but it was so cool to see them up close! Once we got an ice cream treat and refueled, we realized we had to get to Rafiki’s Island before the last train left so we could explore a bit, and get more Wilderness Explorer badges. So we hopped on the train! While on the train, I checked if there were any dinner places with available reservations, and Tusker House popped up! What luck! They are typically always booked, but there must have been cancellations so we snagged the 6:30pm reservation! We got onto Rafiki’s Island and explored around. We missed a drawing class, but we also got to the island quite late. There was a petting zoo area, and a large building (where the drawing class was taking place) that housed some pretty neat bugs and reptiles! We didn’t spend nearly as much time on the island as we wanted to, but next time we will make sure we portion our time better and visit Rafiki’s! We noticed they were closing things up so we headed back to the train station! Once we got off the train, we noticed things closing up so we ran to our dinner reservation at Tusker House,

got seated right away, and enjoyed the fun environment and food! It was family-style, with chicken, beef, potatoes and veggies. We enjoyed it, not the greatest meal, but just getting to see the characters dance around and visit the tables (at a distance) was so exciting! We got to see Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy all in their finest safari gear! The dessert sampler was super good, that was my favorite food! There was a vanilla cupcake, chocolate lava cake, and a honey bee cake! They were all awesome! After a super fun dinner, we slowly headed toward the exit. This was when we stopped at guest services to cheat our way to finishing the Wilderness Explorer booklet, and stopped by the gift shop. The kids got adventure Mickey and Minnie, and I got myself an animal print jersey shirt. We collected our winnings, got on our bus and headed back to the resort! Animal kingdom was such a great day! We loved all the shade this park provided, the animals were so interesting and exciting to see, and we were completely amazed by the rides here! We only missed the Nav’i River Journey and the Kali River Rapids. Many people say this is their least favorite park, but I think it’s awesome. We loved Animal Kingdom!

Breakfast - in the room, oatmeal, fruit, coffee, tea and water

Lunch - Flame Tree BBQ, for less than $100 we got some decent BBQ!

Dinner - Tusker House. Cost was $260. Pricey, but you’re paying for the entertainment! Worth it, we loved every minute and the food was pretty good! Even my daughter tried everything!

Snacks - We packed tons of snacks, and did a starbucks stop for drinks. We also did some frozen fruit bars as a refresher when we got hot! Probably spent $25 on coffee and snacks.

Rides - It’s tough to be a Bug, Avatar Flight of Passage, Kilimanjaro Safari, Wildlife Express train, Expedition Everest, Dinosaur, Triceratop Spin.

Extras - Pressed pennies, safari Mickey and Minnie, and a spirit jersey. My son made a cool necklace in pandora, and my daughter got a shoulder banshee toy.

Transportation - Buses, also the train to Rafiki’s Island, the safari van, also a banshee in Pandora!

Funds - This day costed us about $550 out of pocket.

Weather - Hot and humid, but the shade in this park helped a lot! In the evening it was warm but without the sun it was much more bearable!

Things we packed - Husband and kids each had a backpack, and I had my fanny pack. Hubby and I took turns carrying the backpack, but since we didn’t pack lunch it wasn’t too heavy! Magic bands, masks, extra masks, spare clothes, ponchos, sunscreens, snacks, water bottles, gatorade, cooling towels, fans (kids had the option of bringing them), cash, IDs, sanitizer wipes, hand sanitizer, pins and lanyards (for pin trading, this was also an option for each of us every day we were in the parks), portable chargers, charging cables.

Our rest days were certainly needed! It was nice to lay in bed until we wanted both days, and just be lazy! I highly recommend scheduling rest days into your Disney vacation! Saturday we woke up, laid in bed until around noon, ate some brunch in the room, then got our swimsuits and sunscreen on and hit the pools! We wandered around the resort too, it’s big so it was fun to explore! After we did that, we headed back to our room at around 5pm, to get ready for our fancy dinner reservation, which was at Toledo, in the Destino Tower on Coronado Property. We all dressed nice, then headed over to the Tower. We took the elevator to the top floor, checked in, and went across the hall to the Dahlia Lounge. It was gorgeous up there! We saw there was a balcony, so we moved out there to check it out and we could see so much from up there! Epcot ball and Hollywood Tower of Terror were easily spotted! If I had known that lounge existed, we would have gone to hang there more often! Next time we stay here, I for sure want to go up there to watch the fireworks show at either of those parks!

We got the alert that our table was ready, and they seated us right by the window where we had a nice view. The dinner was excellent! My son got a fish sampler platter, my husband and I got steak and our daughter got the old stand by, mac and cheese! The atmosphere was great, service was 5-star and the food was absolutely delicious! I would 10/10 eat here again!

After dinner we slowly strolled back to our room (half because we were so full, and half because it’s just so pretty at this resort, we wanted to enjoy it!), got ready for bed, played a game, and went to sleep.

Sunday was another easy, rest day. The staff had to come and do a safety check, so we got changed into our swimsuits and ventured off to get lunch and go swim some more! I threw in a load of laundry while we ate lunch at the Ritz bar and grill. The food was good and our server was a super sweet man! My husband went back to the room after some pool time, so he could get his homework done in peace, while the kids and I spent more time at the pool. It was a nice, laid back day. Once we were pruney and done swimming, we showered, got changed and went to the tower to shop around and see what we missed our first time exploring. There is really a lot to do at Coronado, so we enjoyed seeing how beautifully everything is made here. I loved the art of how things were decorated. We talked about how amazing it is that human hands put this together and how breathtaking the artistry of it all truly is.

After wandering around, I got our laundry and brought it back to the room. We decided to change and eat dinner at the Lagos restaurant. So we all went there and ate at the restaurant instead of getting it to go. The ambiance there is so nice and relaxed. Our table was a couch overlooking the water. There was a nice breeze that evening and we could hear the fireworks of what I’m guessing was Epcot. My husband and I had the steak and chimichurri which was my favorite, kids did fish dishes. I also had a sangria flight which was fun! Once we were finished with dinner, we went back to the room to get ready for bed, and for a very exciting week ahead!

Breakfast - in the room, oatmeal, fruit, coffee, tea and water

Lunch - In room, and Rix!

Dinner - Toledo and Lagos!

Snacks - We did some snacks in the room these couple days, nothing wild.

Rides - The pool slide!

Extras - We got the kids refill cups from the Mercado. These were $20 each, and they allowed the kids to fill them anytime on the resort, and filled with water in the parks. Also a great souvenir!

Transportation - We didn’t need any!

Funds - the whole weekend probably cost us about $200 for food!

Weather - Hot and humid during the day, warm breeze at night. Perfect!!

Things we packed - I just brought my fanny pack with IDs and money. That’s all we needed this weekend!

This day was a sleep in day. We woke up at about 11am, ate some breakfast in the room, then got our swimsuits and sunscreen on, to explore the pools at the resort! We walked over to “the Dig Site”, Coronado’s mini water park. We claimed some seats, let the kids get into the pool, my hubby and I got some adult beverages and soaked up the sun for a while before we joined the kids in the pool. After swimming for a little bit, and going down the water slide, we ordered some snacks from the food stand at the Dig Site, and that was our little lunch! After the big pool area, we went to check out our Casitas pool! It was a salt water pool which was so cool, I had never experienced that before! We spent some time there, then I went back to the room to shower while Matt watched the kids at the pool a little longer. Once everyone came up and got rinsed off from the pool, we ordered DoorDash from McDonalds, which was an adventure all its own! I didn’t realize that they wouldn’t let the driver come deliver to our room, so I had to run down to the Tower, meet the driver, and get our food. By the time it all got figured out and I got the food back to the room, it was pretty gross. We ate what we could, and made ourselves other stuff from our room stash of food. Then it was time to get ready for Boo Bash!!! I dressed like Cinderella, my husband was prince charming, son went as Russell from Up, and daughter was Belle! It was more Disney-bounding than the actual costumes, because we wanted to be comfortable, but we got the point across!

Anyway, we hopped on the bus to Magic Kingdom! We waited in the long lines outside the park with other people awaiting entry to the Bash! We got in about 6:30, got our wristbands and trick or treat bags and wandered around. We stumbled upon a side street, off Main Street, that I didn’t know existed. There were maybe 2 other people on the side street, and to my surprise, I found the silhouette cart I had missed on our first day at Magic Kingdom! Silhouettes are souvenirs you can purchase, it was something I really wanted! We walked up to the booth, and the attendant let us know Mr. Tim was the man who did the silhouettes, and he was finishing up a break. So we skipped around and took pictures while we waited. Mr. Tim walked up and we each sat individually. Mr. Tim did our side profiles by hand. It was completely amazing how he did it just by looking at us, and with the tiniest scissors. When we went to check out, the cast member helping Mr. Tim let us know that they only had rectangle frames, not the usual ovals, so that we would be getting 8 portraits for the price of 4. I was definitely not expecting that! It was a lot to carry those around, so we ended up renting a locker to keep them in while we enjoyed the rest of Boo Bash! It worked out great! The lockers are located right near the entrance to Magic Kingdom.

After we got our stuff in the lockers, we headed back down Main Street to watch the fireworks show. I cried like a baby. It was spectacular and one of the last times Happily Ever After was shown, since the 50th anniversary was right around the corner. Getting to see this fireworks show was probably the most amazing show I’ve ever witnessed. We all loved it so much! I watch it on YouTube all the time just to catch the high from seeing it again. I did my best to stay in the moment. It was tough for the kids to see since Main Street was pretty packed. But this was one thing I knew I could not miss! It’s a memory I will think back on fondly for the rest of my days!

I found out that the Boo Bash cavalcades came through the park every 10 minutes and I didn’t want to miss those! Since we couldn’t see the characters in meet and greets, this was the only way to see them all! So we found a great spot in Frontier Land, sat down and waited for them to start! There was a stand nearby that was giving out free drinks, popcorn, and ice creams! We went over there quite a few times and got stuff to snack on while we watched the cavalcades come by! First was the mickey and friends cavalcade, it was so cute to see all the main characters in their Halloween best! Next up was Nightmare Before Christmas and getting to see them in real life was so cool! We love NBC!!! The villains cavalcade was the next one and I loved seeing them all, but especially the Queen of Hearts!! The final cavalcade was a huge mechanical Maleficent dragon that shot fire from its mouth! It was really amazing to see!

After all the awesome cavalcades, we stopped at a couple trick or treating spots, but they didn’t offer any peanut free options for my son. A cast member told us to check out the allergy free station, so we ran over there and they loaded us up with all kinds of fun, allergy friendly treats! We also grabbed a couple of special Boo Bash drinks from a stand. They were so super sweet, we each took a couple sips and ended up throwing them out. Late night plus a really sugary drink is just not a great combination!

We ran over to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train after seeing the wait time was 20 minutes. We rode it and loved it! I really enjoy the story in every ride at Disney. Makes it really feel like you are not on this planet! Once we got off the ride, it was getting close to closing and we decided to try to beat the crowd to the buses. As we were walking down Main Street, we saw the Maleficent Dragon coming through again, and decided to watch it again! It was the grand finale of the Bash, so we ended up leaving with the crowds but it was worth it to get one last glimpse of the fire breathing dragon! So we rode back to the resort, showered and went to bed! This was a very late night, but I planned for a nice, quiet weekend with lots of rest and resetting for another busy week!

Breakfast - in the room, oatmeal, fruit, coffee, tea and water

Lunch - snacks at the pool.

Dinner - McDonalds DoorDash, do not recommend, learn from our mistakes!

Snacks - We packed light for this event, a couple bags of goldfish and a couple oranges since we knew we would have access to free popcorn and ice cream all night. Didn’t even pack water since that was available as well.

Rides - Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.

Extras - We each got one small thing from the Emporium that night, the big thing was the silhouettes.

Transportation - Bus to the park, and a bus back to the hotel.

Funds - this day cost us about $200 out of pocket. We prepaid our tickets for Boo Bash.

Weather - Nice and hot for our pool activities during the day! The temp at night for boo bash was perfect! Not too hot!

Things we packed - Magic bands, masks, extra masks, cash and IDs, and a couple snacks. This was our only park day where we only had one backpack.

Another morning I did not set an alarm! We woke up around 9am, got ready, packed our backpacks, headed to the bus, and got to Epcot before they opened! We accidentally rope-dropped! It worked out great because we entered the park and Mickey and Minnie were there greeting everyone(at a distance)!!! What a phenomenal surprise!!! We RAN to Soarin’, because I heard that the ride gets really busy. We walked right on it! Soarin’ was a totally awesome ride! Pay attention when you’re riding, they pump different scents out when you are in different areas of the world! You can still smell them through your mask, and it just goes to show how much detail goes into everything Disney does!

Pretty much the rest of the day was eating around the world! We got to experience the Food and Wine Festival, so they had booths from many countries all over the park! We got samples of some things which are smaller portions, at a lower price. This isn’t offered at all the stands, but I asked at most of the stands and they did offer this! So if you’re wanting to taste more things, ask for a sample!

Here’s what we got to try from the Food and Wine Fest-

Tofu Pho from The Noodle Exchange - I loved it! It was spicy and savory and the mushrooms were my favorite part of the dish! The noodles were thick and delicious and the tofu was good too!

Shimmering Strawberry Soft-serve and the Mimosa Flight from Shimmering Sips - I got the kids each the strawberry cone and we all tried it and loved it! Such a perfect treat on a hot day! I very much enjoyed the mimosa flight! The blood orange was my favorite, even though I wanted it to be the Key Lime! All were great, but I could not drink much of the Tropical mimosa (passion fruit makes my mouth itch).

Canadian Cheddar and Bacon soup and Wild Mushroom Beef Filet Mignon from Canada - These were our family’s favorites! My daughter still talks about the soup. It was her single most favorite meal at Disney! All 4 of us were obsessed with the Filet. If I wasn’t determined to try other things, I would have gone back for more of that!

Apple Chips, Cinnamon Apple Cider, and Sin Hard Cider from Appleseed Orchard - The apple chips were a little disappointing, I wasn’t really expecting them in a bag, I thought they’d be fresh. The kids loved their cinnamon apple cider, it was cold and refreshing and I felt the same about the hard cider.

Creme Brulee au Grand Marnier and Strawberry Rose Mimosa from France - The kids couldn’t eat the creme brulee because the alcohol wasn’t cooked out. We enjoyed it very much! My husband’s favorite dessert! The strawberry rose mimosa was really good, sweet, and refreshing!

Spanakopita and Griddled Cheese from Greece - The spanakopita was fine, nothing to write home about. The Griddled cheese was good too! It didn’t stand out for me.

Teriyaki Chicken Bao, Tempura Shrimp Sando, and Spicy Hako Sushi from Japan - I couldn’t eat the sando or sushi, but my husband and son loved it! My son said this was his favorite things! The Bao was given to my daughter by one of the kind staff and she was SO excited and aside from the 2 bites I took, she ate the whole thing and loved it!

Beer flight from Germany - My husband got this, and he said they were all good but the cherry flavored beer was his favorite.

New England Lobster Roll from Hops & Barley - This was one of my husbands picks that he really wanted to try so we hunted down Hops & Barley. He loved this sandwich! Certainly his top food that day!

Wild Mushroom and Truffle Tart from Rotunda Bistro - I got this one because I saw it on a food blog and had to try it! I thought it was good! Needed more sauce and mushrooms in my opinion.

Charcuterie from Spain - I got this one because I have family in Spain and I had to get something from there! When I texted them they laughed and said “yea you’ll never find that here” so although it wasn’t authentic, it was decent.

After trying lots of yummy foods, we had to save room for our dinner reservation at Biergarten. We headed over there, were seated and were told a German band would begin playing soon. What a sweet show!! The food wasn’t grand, I didn’t enjoy it an incredible amount but the staff and the entertainment was great and it was a request from my hubby who is German, that we ate there. The kids and hubby enjoyed it!

The kids found a passport scavenger hunt (something I should have found out before we went to the park so we weren’t scrambling at the end of the night to find the last ones!). Each Epcot country had one and it was fun to find them around the park! At the end, if you show the last country that you had all your passport papers (not doing stamps at the moment), you received a postcard souvenir! They got theirs and thought it was so cool!

After dinner and finishing up the passports, we went over to Spaceship Earth to hitch a ride to space! The wait was 5 minutes so we got that finished pretty quickly. We wanted to see the fireworks show at Epcot, so we started heading to that area. On our way, we handed out some glow sticks to kids in the park. I packed some fun things to “pixie dust” others with at the parks. We handed a couple glow sticks to a dad pushing his 2 kids in their stroller, and we went on our way handing them to other kiddos. The dad came running up beside me and said “hey I see you’re pixie dusting, I actually work for Disney and I want to get your kids something! Follow me!” So he brought us to the closest ice cream stand and got the kids each a Mickey ice cream! It was so nice! We chatted for a couple minutes and went our separate ways. It was so kind of him and his wife!

We finished our day out by watching the fireworks on the water. It was such a beautiful show and a great way to close out our awesome day! Epcot is certainly a park I would like to return to, especially during the food and wine fest! I think I would need 2 days here so that I could try everything, ride the rides we missed, and see the new areas they opened!

Breakfast - in the room, oatmeal, fruit, coffee, tea and water

Lunch - we did lots of different foods from the Food and Wine Fest. We knew today would be our big spending on food day since we wanted to try so many things! You can request sample portions at certain booths for a discount. Just have to ask!

Dinner - reservations at Biergarten. Buffet style German cuisine. It was just okay. Wouldn’t go back because the food wasn’t my style. The atmosphere was fun, there was a band playing, and the staff was wonderful. Very clean!

Snacks - packed lots of snacks, even though I knew we’d be eating all day!

Rides - Soarin, Spaceship Earth.

Extras - Nothing major here, each kid got a pin and one thing they really wanted. There was also a passport program. Each area had a passport, you could collect the passport for each area, and if you collect all of them ( I believe there were 12) you let a station know and they give each kid a postcard, which you can write a letter to yourself then send it, and it’s another cool souvenir. Every hotel sells stamps and has an outgoing mailbox!

Transportation - Bus to the park, and a bus back to the hotel. Easy! Coming back was busy since we stayed to watch the fireworks show, but the bus to the park was empty, likely because we got there pretty early.

Funds - this day costed us about $400, and it was mostly food.

Weather - it was hot and rainy! We were prepared with ponchos, and this was the only day we really used them. Epcot doesn’t have much shade or coverage but it wasn’t bad at all.

Things we packed - Magic bands, masks, extra masks, spare clothes, ponchos, sunscreens, snacks, water bottles, Gatorade, cooling towels, fans (kids had the option of bringing them), cash, IDs, sanitizer wipes, hand sanitizer, pins and lanyards (for pin trading, this was also an option for each of us every day we were in the parks), portable chargers, charging cables.

We woke up without an alarm. We were all so excited to get ready and get on the bus! We left the resort on an empty bus at roughly 10 am and arrived at Magic Kingdom at about 10:15 am. I didn’t want to start the first day with a rope drop, because I knew we’d be tired from traveling the day before. Walking in the gate, I felt the magic wash over me, I immediately felt welcomed and fully immersed in the kingdom. I had tears when I saw the castle. Like "wow, I can’t believe we made this happen and we’re here!" We did "It’s a Small World" ride, first. It was to pay homage to my nanny. She brought my sister and I to Disney a few times, and she would be up before everyone, even the sun, to make sure we were all set for a happy day. Her only request of any trip to Disney, was to wait in line and ride “It’s a Small World”. That’s it, she never asked for anything else, so we would ride it at some point, every trip. We got on the ride, and it’s just like I remember it. A little creepy, but wonderfully nostalgic.

Once we got off "It's a Small World", we hopped on the Haunted Mansion, one of my favorites! It was just as magical as I remember, even more since I was experiencing it with my kids! The rest of the day was filled with all the fun things- pressed some pennies, ate some dole whip, rode on some mountains and magic carpets, cruised the jungle (saw the backside of water!), saw some golden statues, some characters, a couple cavalcades, cat-called Gaston, confessed my love to Tiana, got welcomed to Magic Kingdom by the Fairy Godmother herself, bought those iconic balloons, bubble wands, and mickey ears.

We all had to go to the bathroom at one point, and accidentally caught the flag lowering on main street and I cried, what a beautiful moment we got to witness. When we went back to sit on the curb and rest for a minute, a couple of custodial cast members were heading back stage, I smiled and said “Hi! Thank you guys for all you do here!”. Two of the cast members said “thank you!” and kept walking, but one man, Du, stopped and said “hey, you guys enjoying your first visit?” (we had “first visit” pins on) and we all went on about how wonderful our day had been, and how magical Disney really is. He said “wanna see some more magic? I found this pen after the fireworks last night (he pulled out a Disney world pen). I think Tinkerbell dropped it, because it’s full of magic, wanna see?” We all yelled YES!! Du proceeded to do some sleight of hand magic tricks. We were fascinated by him and his talents and I just kept thinking “man is everyone magical here?”. We chatted for awhile and he said, “here mom, take this magic pen. I hope it brings lots more magic to you all!” We thanked him a million times, then he said “hey, I hear there’s a really awesome cavalcade coming through in a couple minutes, you guys should move to the curb over there so you can see it!" Again, we thanked him profusely and that cavalcade was an awesome one with tons of characters! It may or may not have been the one where I cat-called Gaston. Side note- if you didn’t know, the characters are not doing signatures and you can’t touch them right now because of COVID, so parades, character meals (which are also limited right now), and distanced waving are the only way to see our beloved Disney friends. Anyway, the cavalcade ended, and I felt a tap on my shoulder, it was Du! I was so excited to see him, I didn’t notice that he had handed the kids mickey ice creams!! I was just overwhelmed with gratitude for this sweet man. He made our first day,of our first visit so special and magical and I wondered what made my little family so special that he wanted to do that for us. He was my favorite Disney character!

After a full day of awesomeness, we finished our amazing day with a Be Our Guest dinner at Beast’s Castle. When walking out of that dinner, we saw the fireworks show and I cried knowing that we had made it here and we would be giving our kids and ourselves the most wonderful memories. We didn’t rush anything. We had dinner reservations, but I didn’t feel like we were pressed for time to get there. We sat a lot! We found a couple of quiet places to take off our shoes, drink our water, and use the “Disney Play” app. I highly recommend this app for waiting in lines, and distracting the kids when they start getting whiny. It helped us quite a few times. If I could give any advice, go with ZERO expectations. Go slow, don’t rush. Use the “My Disney Experience” app to your advantage! We would check wait times and they very rarely were the time listed. It was usually less. There were a couple times that they were dead on, so they do a great job keeping the times updated! If you’re walking by a ride and it says 20 minutes or less on the sign or in the app, hop in line! Each ride is magical in it’s own way. Something I absolutely LOVE about Disney is that you ride with your stuff. So there’s no hassle of putting your stuff off to the side and having to find it on the way out. Except for the balloons, so if you want to get a balloon, wait until the END of the night or if you’re done riding rides for the day. You have to tie the balloon to a railing and we skipped a couple rides at the end of the night because we had the balloons. But we weren’t sad that we missed them this day, we got to the rides we wanted on our next day!

After the fireworks show, we headed to the buses. Our bus was full on the way back, but that's certainly because we stayed until the end of the show. We made it back to our room, showered, got in our PJs and went to sleep, knowing that the next day would be just as magical!

Breakfast- ate in the room (oatmeal, cereal, fruit)

Lunch – packed sandwiches, fruit, veggies, string cheese, Gatorade, water (bottled that we brought with, and also free cups of ice water from Pecos Bills where we sat outside to eat)

Dinner- Be our Guest dinner. Matt and I each had an adult beverage, I had wine and he had beer. I had the mixed field greens, Matt and Charlie had the Maine Lobster Bisque, Aubrey had the House-made Peach Applesauce as appetizers. For entree, I had the Center cut Filet Mignon, the boys had The Sea Scallops, and Aubrey had the Mac n Cheese. We were so full, and they were nice enough to box up all our desserts for us. When we made it back to the room, we snacked on them and they were awesome! The grey stuff (it truly is delicious!), dark chocolate truffles, and a raspberry macaron!

Snacks- packed granola bars, protein bars, chips, fruit snacks.

Purchased- dole whip, ice cream, and dole whip float.

Rides we got on - It’s a small world, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain, Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, and Splash Mountain (twice!)

Extras – we paid for the memory maker. Some people say this is a waste of money, but we paid $169 when we booked our package, and every photographer I saw, I stopped to do pictures! And every ride that offered photos, we got those as well! For me, it was more than worth it! I’m never in photos unless it’s a selfie, so for me, it was worth every dollar. We got TONS of photos, and they were easy to download to our computer from our My Disney Experience website.

Transportation – Empty bus on the way to Magic Kingdom. Likely because we didn’t rope drop. Full bus on the way back, but it was because we left after the fireworks show.

Funds- between the Be Our Guest dinner, the snacks, and the souvenirs, this day costed us about $450 out of pocket.

Weather- hot, humid. Drizzled for an hour in the afternoon. Not enough to use the ponchos. It was easy to find a shop or a ride to hop on to get out of the rain. We got on splash mountain twice during the drizzle.

Things we packed for the day- Magic bands, masks, extra masks, spare clothes, ponchos, sunscreens, snacks (lots of snacks!), lunch, water bottles, gatorade, cooling towels, fans (kids had the option of bringing them), cash, IDs, sanitizer wipes, hand sanitizer, pins and lanyards (for pin trading, this was also an option for each of us every day we were in the parks), portable chargers, charging cables. Kids each had their own back packs for their stuff, Matt and I shared custody of a backpack with lunch and extras in it, and I carried my fanny pack with the funds and hand sanitizers.

9/14/2021 TRAVEL DAY- From ORD to MCO

Woke up at 5am, none of us really slept, we were so excited! We moved all of our luggage to the sidewalk out front. Our limo arrived at 6:30am. We hopped in, loaded our luggage, and it was a smooth ride to O'Hare Airport! We got dropped off, checked our luggage, went through all the security (they confiscated our freeze packs because they were defrosted, my bad!) and went right to our gate. I placed our Instacart order while we waited to board our plane! In hindsight, I should have waited until we landed in Orlando because I wasn't able to communicate with my shopper, now I know for next time. Checked in on the app, got on the plane and began our journey to Orlando! We hit some major turbulence on our descent into Orlando, it was terrifying but a storm had formed out of nowhere. The pilot announced we were headed back up, and since we were low on fuel, we couldn't ride around the storm, so we had to land in Tampa, gas up and get back to our real destination. It was a bit of a mess, and took twice as long to get there, but this is why I planned on this day being strictly for travel. We landed in Tampa, stayed on board for about 90 minutes, then were back in the air. Orlando was maybe a 20 minute ride.

We landed, got our luggage, and made it over to the Magical Express buses. Boarded our bus, and we were at our resort lobby in less than half an hour. We walked in, were greeted by the amazing staff at Coronado, checked in with Melissa, then got sent to bell services to pick up our instacart order. Melissa hung out with us and chatted with the kids, she was amazing and so nice! They loaded up a stretch golf cart and we got a VIP ride over to Casitas 4 with all of our luggage and groceries in tow! Luis was an excellent help getting us there, and he even unloaded everything, and brought it up to our room! A-class service! Luis helped us get everything into our room, we thanked him for his awesome service, tried to tip him and he refused. Once we were all in, I busted out the lysol and sprayed everything down. Because COVID. I got us all unpacked and organized, while Matt got our dinner order ready for a restaurant on campus, Three Bridges. After everyone showered, I went on an adventure to find the restaurant. The grounds at Coronado Springs are absolutely gorgeous. If we weren't doing the parks, I could literally find new, fun things to do here everyday and never get bored! I was a little confused, because in the app the restaurant is called Three Bridges Bar & Grill, but the building says Villa del Lago. It's located right in the middle of the 3 bridges connecting much of the property. The steak with chimmichurri was my favorite thing, I ordered it 3 times while we stayed here!

After dinner, I set out all of our clothes, packed our backpacks, and made sure we were ready to wake up and SEE THE MOUSE!!!

Oh planning. It was A LOT! My friend had mentioned that she did Disney planning as a side hustle ,and it was FREE for me to use her as our planner. Since I knew nothing about Disney, I asked for her help, and she was so kind and helpful and held my hand through the planning process. She made us a list of resorts with prices and we initially chose Pop Century value resort.

We were scheduled for April 2020, and we all know what happened during that time! So she rescheduled us for April 2021. Then I got a job, so she moved it yet again to September 2021. By this time, I had already packed and unpacked twice and remade t-shirts for the kids (they just keep growing!) so I told my husband, if we couldn’t make it happen, that we just had to stop trying. I couldn’t take that disappointment and unpacking pressure a fourth time! Anyway, during the time between the second and third reschedule, my friend found us an amazing deal on an upgrade to a moderate resort. We took it, and figured why not? So we chose Coronado Springs! Then I began following all the Disney Facebook groups I could find, and asking lots of questions and looking at advice from others who were seasoned Disney-goers. It helped so much!

I started making my list of must-haves for packing! Things we needed, but also items that we could save a ton of money on, by purchasing ahead of time. PACK BATTERIES PEOPLE! I ordered nice luggage from amazon, and got backpacks for each of us. We booked our flights through United, they seemed to have the best options for flights, and also included one personal item (purse or the like), and a carry-on included in the price of the flights. Even their checked bags seemed to have the best rate. We weighted all of our luggage before hand so we would know that it was all under the 50 pound weight limit. Bringing our laptop and Matt's school books made it interesting!

I booked and paid for our ride from our house to the airport, and then from the airport home, upon our return. We went through Cloud 9 Limo Service. They were easy to work with, and the most reasonably priced in the area. We took a limo ride from home to the airport, it was really special and Aubrey had never ridden in a limo so she was so excited! We got an SUV for the way home at the end of our trip. Looking back, we could have done the limo ride home as well, since there was only about a $30 difference, but we had a great conversation with our SUV driver on the way home that I would not have traded for anything! The cost for The limo there was $165 (tip included) and the SUV home was about $135 (tip included). They did a wonderful job and I would book them again in a heart beat! It was great too, because everything was prepaid. They texted when they arrived at our house (we were already waiting in the window), and they also texted us when they arrived at the airport and told us where to meet them.

I planned our park days, activity reservations (droids and light saber) and dining reservations (Our TA got us every single reservation we wanted!!!). I know lots of people don’t like that there isn’t any fast passes anymore (Genie + coming soon but it costs extra!), but I think it was for the better, because that way, we weren’t rushing from one ride/side of the park to the other. We just checked the My Disney Experience app for wait times, and hopped on them as we pleased. If we didn’t want to wait we’d just wander around until the wait time was better or we skipped it. No big.

Anyway, I packed everything we could possibly need and then some! I’ll include my list of everything I packed-

Hand sanitizer - we brought lots, used it often but the parks had many stations to use as well.

Ponchos - brought ones we had from six flags, heavy duty. They were too heavy to carry around, we preferred the cheap dollar tree ones. However, we really didn't need them aside from one day, so we got lucky there.

Lysol spray - to spray our stuff down each day, and to spray our hotel room down when we arrived.

Travel tissues - from dollar tree for our park backpacks.

Deodorant - for obvious reasons.

Water bottles with filter - we heard the free water in the parks tasted gross so I got these, the free water was not gross and we never used these. The kids will use them for scouts!

Sunglasses - bought matching ones, 8 pairs in case any broke. We used 2 pairs the whole time.

Feminine products - packed a few of each just in case, the cost of these in the stores on campus was insane!

Shave cream and razors - ended up ordering razors from Instacart. The ones I packed were the cheap dollar tree ones, should have gotten nicer, disposable ones and could have saved a few bucks!

Socks for all - got really good deals on clearance after winter last year. Packed them brand new, we needed lots of extras!

Undies for all - again, looked for clearance undies, washed them and packed 15 pairs each.

Flashlight - didn’t end up needing it, but it’s an essential!

Batteries - PACK EXTRAS! We packed a 6-pack of AA and it wasn’t enough, we ended up spending $15 in batteries in the gift shop for bubble wands.

First aid kit - needed a couple band aids from it, it’s another essential!

Charging cables - ordered a 6 pack from amazon ahead of time. It worked out great, and having them when we got home was awesome! Nothing like new charging cords!

Charging blocks - I’m glad we had them and we used one, but the hotel had USB plugs!!

Portable charging batteries - YES YES YES! We had 3 and used them all! They all had flashlights too, so we could have eliminated the flashlight, had I known.

Combs - the girls certainly needed the wide tooth combs, brought a pack of dollar store ones for the boys, they never used them. Surprise surprise!

Disposable masks – YES! Get adult sizes and kid sizes! Pack a few of each in plastic bags for your park back pack!

Fanny pack – I packed mine and I loved having it. I kept the cash and cards in there. Also my battery pack, cord, and my phone. I also used one of the pockets to put all my pressed pennies in.

Hair ties – pack lots!! I threw a couple extras in our park back pack too!

Sandwich and snack baggies – I used these for many things! I also packed snack baggies for things like grapes, carrots and cucumbers.

Gallon baggies- for larger things to keep dry just in case, in the parks. I also used these to pack our clothes.

Chapstick – I got one for each of us and I was the only one who used it. But good to have it anyway!

Pens – only needed one the whole time we were there! The kids used theirs as well to write about their days.

Closet organizer/hanging bins – I loved having this to put our daily clothes in! The closet in the room is small, but it worked well for us!

Dish soap – I liked having this! I washed our cups each day and I used it to wash masks too! It definitely came in handy!

Night light plug in- I liked having one in the bathroom so we didn’t have to switch the lights on in the night. Got it at dollar tree, worked great!

Cold medicine for adults and kids- never used either, brought it just in case.

Ibuprofen for adults and kids – used pretty often (adults, kids used once for a headache).

Allergy medicine for adults and kids – used everyday, kids and husband have allergies.

Vitamins – used everyday since we all take our vitamins!

Gas-X – needed this! We ate soooo much!

Tums – used a few times. Like I said, we ate a LOT!

Lactaid – for me, I only needed it a couple times!

Emergen-C – I took this each morning to boost my immune system. I love it!

Scissors – used these daily!

Cooling towels – Frogg Toggs on amazon! We used the crap out of these in the parks!

Epi pens – son has a deadly peanut allergy, we had one in his back pack and one in ours every day!

Mole skin – ordered on amazon. We didn’t even open the package. If you have sensitive skin it may be good to have it, but apparently all the walking at Six Flags worked to our advantage!

Lotion – I brought regular lotion, we didn’t use it. I also brought Epsom salt gel, we all used it on our feet at the end of the day it felt good but wasn’t really necessary for us.

Sunscreen – I brought 3 lotions and 2 sprays, we used most of it!

Straws – Disney doesn’t allow plastic straws. Which is so great for the environment! The paper straws weren’t nearly as bad as everyone said, Joffrey’s had really nice paper straws, if that’s a thing! We packed bamboo and hard plastic straws, but didn’t end up using them.

Cough Drops – Here in IL I need cough drops at night because it’s so dry in our house. I didn’t experience that in Disney. Maybe it’s the humidity, but we didn’t use them!

Loofahs – got a 4 pack at dollar tree, they were so much better than the wash clothes provided in the room. To each their own but it was a luxury I preferred to have.

Wipes – I brought disinfecting wipes and baby wipes. We used both. Had them in the park back packs every day! Used them to wipe hands and tables before and after we ate! A mom had a kid with a bloody nose in front of us in line for a ride and they came in handy for them too!

Phone number tattoos – we had planned this trip years ago when the kids were smaller. Ordered them on Etsy, and while they were a great idea, they were in storage too long and ended up being garbage since they were no longer sticky.

Carabiner clips – packed them to hang our water bottles off of our back packs. Never used them. Would work if you had a stroller.

Lanyards and pins – I ordered our lanyards off amazon and did a 40 pack of random Disney pins off amazon for trading. I also received a pack of them as a gift, we used them all!

Autograph books – I ordered kits off amazon that had a drawstring bag, autograph book, lanyard, coin purse, and pen. Unfortunately, right now, the characters aren’t doing signatures, but the kids loved these books to write their daily journal in. They wrote down what we did that day to share with their classes when we got back home! I highly recommend still getting them if you have older kids!

Laundry bag/pop up – Get a couple of these! They were so helpful to keep clothes off the floor, and if you end up doing laundry on site, it’s an easy way to transport the clothes!

Toothpaste and toothbrushes – hit up dollar tree. Use them and toss them!

Notebook – I brought my planning notebook with. I wrote notes in it as I honed the list of daily items needed. It’s always good to have paper on hand!

Clothes – I made matching shirts for our park days. People like to roll their clothes, I folded each days clothes, labeled gallon bags with which day and park each outfit was for, and then flattened them as best I could in each bag. If we get to travel again, I’d love to get one of those machines that sucks all the air out the bags. I kneeled on each bag and managed to get everyone’s clothes into their carry on back packs!

Sandals – needed these for our pool/resort days, got cheap ones from dollar general and left them there. No space so they didn’t make the cut to come home.

Slippers - grabbed 4 pairs from dollar general. They worked great, and I didn't feel bad leaving them behind because they were so cheap!

Good walking shoes – we each got a new pair of walking shoes 2 weeks before the trip so we had time to break them in. We wore them there and home. Certainly a need!

Pixie Dust – Packed a bunch of stuff to hand out to others at the parks! Glow sticks, stickers, tattoos, mini bubbles, and some small toys! It was so fun to pass these things out to the kids at the parks and make someone’s day!

I also prepared a grocery list! Instacart delivered directly to our resort! One note I’d make, because I learned the hard way, is to wait until you arrive at your resort to place the order so that you can communicate with your shopper. Also, be sure to add in the notes for your shopper to drop off the order at Bell Services. Bell Services will accept the order (even if there is alcohol included) and will keep your items refrigerated until you arrive. If you ask, Bell Services will deliver your items to your room, you just have to be present in the room to accept the items. I spent about $250 on our Instacart order, but it truly saved us hundreds and hundreds on lunches, dinners, and snacks! Here’s what we ordered!

From Aldi-

Iced coffee – There aren’t a lot of options outside the park for iced coffee. I ordered 2 bottles and nearly finished it all!

Whipped cream cheese – for bagels and sandwiches!

Baby carrots - rinsed them and individually bagged them in snack baggies.

Grapes – rinsed them and also individually bagged them in snack baggies.

Cuties/oranges - threw one in everyone's back pack each day, it was a nice refreshing snack!

Paper bowls – thinking back, I should have gotten some plastic bowls from dollar tree and packed them. Less waste and we wouldn’t have run out!

Paper plates – same thought as the bowls and we barely used any plates.

Utensils – ordered the trio pack, forks, knives, and spoons. But they replaced them with just forks. In the future I’ll pack real stuff!

Tissues – Don’t waste your money, there’s plenty in the room!

Cucumbers – washed and cut with a very flimsy plastic knife from a restaurant. It worked, but like I said, next time, real stuff!

Cereal – got 3 boxes, worked great for breakfast and a before bed snack.

Milk – got ½ gallon 2% and ½ gallon almond milk. Was a perfect amount!

Yogurt – Got 6 and we ate them all! Great snack for after the parks!

Granola – for topping our yogurt, also worked well as a snack individually bagged for a park snack!

Gum – I know I know it’s not allowed but I really needed it sometimes!

Almonds – this was a snack for me, I like the individual 100 calorie bags. Super easy to throw in the park back pack for snacks!

2 cases of bottled water – Please do yourself a favor and do this! A bottle of water is about $4 in the parks! 2 cases costed me $5!!

Gatorade – got 2 cases of the mini bottles. Worked out great for the parks and after!

Jelly – got grape and strawberry for our sandwiches and bagels!

Mini bagels – for breakfast and even lunch!

2 loaves of bread – had some leftover, but we needed it for packing our lunches in the parks! Or just a snack if you’re my daughter!

Cheese slices – for our deli meat sandwiches, also for snacks!

String cheese – perfect snack for the parks and when we were just hanging out in the room!

Mustard- the king of condiments

Mayo – gotta have it for the sandwiches!

Easy Mac – This worked out well when we needed lunch, dinner, or a snack in our room!

Can ravioli – This is something the boys like. If you get it though, make sure you have a can opener, these went to waste.

Lunchables – perfect lunch or snack for the parks or in the room!

Ramen cup- this also made for an easy lunch, dinner, and snack in the room! Use the Keurig!

Salami, turkey, and ham – load up on good deli meats for sandwiches!

Bananas – in room snack or breakfast.

From Target –

Nail clippers – grab some from dollar tree before you go! I didn’t realize how much we’d need them!

Razors – I packed them, but ended up needing something better than what I brought. We have sensitive skin, so just make sure you know what you like before you go and save the money!

Dairy free pumpkin spice creamer – NEED

Shampoo and conditioner – I personally loved what was provided, but my daughter has very curly hair so we needed her usual stuff. Probably could have packed it, but I felt better not having it in the luggage.

Body wash – Could have skipped this, the stuff provided was so good!

Character soup – my daughters favorite. Great alternative if she was hungry and didn’t like what was offered at the resort.

Paper towel – got one roll, used most of it. It was nice to have it available!

Cookie butter – no peanut anything for us, so Biscoff was our friend!

Nutella – another one we used instead of peanut butter and my kids love it!

Rice krispie treats – there were times my son couldn’t have certain desserts so this was in our park back packs just in case!

Fruit snacks – buy them all! It’s a perfect pick me up snack in the parks!

Goldfish – another snack that went fast! It was perfect for a before bed snack!

Oatmeal – my kids favorite breakfast! I like starting the day with oatmeal, it doesn’t go through you fast like cereal!

Chips – a great snack for the parks!

Apple sauce – in room snack!

Be sure when you book your vacation, also reserve your park days! There is still a reservation needed to get into the parks! Also, at this time, you can reserve your dining 60 days from your first day of your trip! If you don’t get the reservations you want, don’t worry! Download the My Disney Experience app, and check it for the dining reservations you want throughout your vacation! People cancel all the time! We scored a Tusker House while we were in animal kingdom! It is possible, don’t give up hope!

Here are the dining reservations we had going into our trip (thanks to our awesome travel agent!)

Be our Guest dinner at Magic Kingdom - LOVED this one! The food was great, the décor was awesome and seeing the beast was so magical!

Biergarten at Epcot – buffet style. Food was okay, nothing to write home about. My husband is German and really wanted to try this one! Loved the band that played, they were the highlight!

Toledo at Coronado – The view was so amazing. The ambiance was stunning. Food was really great!

Tusker House in Animal Kingdom – grabbed this reservation while at the park, on a whim because I heard good things. The food was good, family style, but the characters made it worthwhile! We had so much fun!

Oga’s Cantina in Hollywood Studios – we only did drinks here, but all of them were awesome, the theme and ambiance was so cool!

Chef Mickey’s at the Contemporary – the resort is under construction, so the noise was distracting, but I’m so glad we went! Saw the fab 5 in chef uniforms, and myself being a chef, I loved that so much! The food was fine, my favorite thing was the hash brown casserole!

Cinderella’s Table at Magic Kingdom – SO magical! The food was amazing and the atmosphere and thrill factor of eating in the castle made it 10000% worth it! This was a pre-paid meal too, so all we had to pay for was our adult drinks and the tip. Everything about this one was grand!

The pets were taken care of by our friends, and Alice went to her daycare. Daycare was a large expense, but we took out cash to cover it and left that at home so we knew we would be able to pay for her when we returned. Be sure you have care sheets to give to people tending to your critters! Our neighbors too Mia, and my other friend/neighbor came over to make sure the house was ok, and to tend to our aquatic/shelled creatures. We have the greatest friends and neighbors!!

Be sure you stop your mail! You can go to your local post office, and fill out a form to stop your mail. Start date, end date, and choose if you'd like them to just deliver all the mail they've held at once, or pick it up from the Post Office at your leisure.

Telling the kids was the highlight of our pre-trip planning! We kept this thing a secret for YEARS! We didn’t want to tell them because if we couldn’t make it happen we didn’t want them to be disappointed. So we packed and planned in secret. Monday was just like any other day, we dropped them at school, picked them up, and when we got home we sent them to take showers then quickly set up the living room with a banner, balloons, streamers, and our magic bands, shirts and Mickey and Minnie stuffies. I put up a plastic tablecloth over the entrance to the living room. We called them over for a “family meeting” then revealed the living room to them! They lost it when they realized what was happening! We got our shirts on for our trip, ate some dinner, then went off to try and get some sleep!