I am so overdue on this post… but I couldn’t NOT share about our magical Disney vacation in Florida!! My parents took the family for a 6-day vacation to Orlando in April this year. We didn’t have a ton of time, but we PACKED it in! If you want to know how to fit in ALL the magic Orlando has to offer in a short time, this post is for you. Here’s what we got up to in our Orlando and Disney Vacation!
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Day One: Arrive and Disney Springs
We flew into Orlando (I flew for free with a free checked bag thanks to my reward points on United! I tell you all about how you can earn rewards points in this post) and then it was straight to our Airbnb. We love Airbnbs when traveling with the family! Everyone is together, and it makes meals much more affordable. Not to mention we had one with our own pool! What’s a Florida vacation without a pool!?
Use www.airbnb.com/c/brookem3645 for $40 off your first stay, and read about the Pros and Cons of Airbnb here.
For dinner on our first night, we went to Disney Springs and ate at the Boathouse. The Boathouse is a super unique boat themed restaurant right on the water, and the food was delicious. We had a table on the deck, right next to where they launched the aqua cars! There was so much to look at both in the restaurant and out on the water. Between hot air balloons, aqua cars, nautical decorations, and live music… I felt like my head was on a swivel!
After dinner, we cruised around downtown Disney, or Disney Springs, and did a little shopping. There were SO many awesome restaurants and shops here, honestly you could make a whole day of it.
Day Two: Universal Studio – Islands of Adventure
Following advice of our Orlando-expert cousin, we were well prepared to “rope drop” all the parks during our 4-days of park hoping! What is “rope dropping”? Rope dropping is when you arrive at the park early enough where you are the first people in line – right at the rope. So, when the “rope drops” and the park opens, you are first in line for the most popular attractions. We learned it is a full contact sport and is not for the faint of heart. We arrived at the parks anywhere from 1-2 hours prior to park opening, but this may be different in busier seasons!
Our first day rope dropping was quite successful, we were literally the FIRST people at the gate at Universal Studo Islands of Adventure. We bought our tickets weeks in advance so we were ready to go. Universal does not allow bags on several of the rides – not even fanny packs! So we dropped our stuff in the locker and ran to the Hulk Rollercoaster. There are lockers at the front of the park, and also near most larger attractions.
We downloaded both the Orlando Undercover Tourist app and the Universal FL apps to help us navigate through the parks, and show us where the short ride wait times were. We found these apps so helpful! They were not always super accurate for ride times, but they were close. The new Islands of Adventure Skull Island was down for most of the morning, but I was able to check the status of the ride while in line for other rides. As soon as it opened, we ran to the attraction and only had to wait 15-20 minutes for the ride. The rest of the day it was over a 120 minute wait!
Highlights of Islands of Adventure included the Hulk Rollercoaster, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (my favorite!), and Jurassic Park.
After we felt we had rode it all and done it all, we had dinner at Margaritaville in City Walk, Universal Studios “downtown”. We are big Jimmy Buffet fans in my family!
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Day 3: Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot
Right, time for the Disney vacation!! We were so excited to rope drop Hollywood Studios. This was much more stressful than rope dropping at Universal Studios because there were SO many more people. It felt like we were in a mob. We went straight to Toy Story Land and rode Slinky’s Rollercoaster. It did NOT disappoint and was quite possibly one of my favorite rides of the day! For a small, unassuming looking rollercoaster, this thing was fun and fast! Toy Story land was SO cute and PERFECTLY decorated so you really feel like you are toy sized. We definitely could have stayed here longer to enjoy all those special Disney touches, but we had two parks to hit in one day!
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Some of our other favorites at Hollywood Studios were the Star Wars ride, Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror, and the Rockin’ Roller Coaster.
After we felt we did all we wanted at Hollywood, it was off to Epcot for the afternoon and evening! We hopped on the ferry from Hollywood and it dropped us off in the Word Showcase in Epcot.
We explored the World Showcase and “drank around the world”. Effectively walking around the whole World Showcase and getting a drink or snack in (nearly) every country!! We were there during the Epcot Food & Garden Festival so there were special food and drink carts everywhere! I’m not going to lie, this wasn’t cheap but it was so fun and we all agreed it was a Disney highlight.
During our time exploring “around the world” we finally got 2 Fast Passes for the Frozen Ever After ride. Now, I love Frozen and my sisters love Frozen. There were 3 of us, and we only had 2 fast passes. But Disney staff is MAGIC and they let all 3 of us on the ride.
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And I don’t know if it was the drinks or if it was pure Disney magic, but this ride was magical! We came off that ride SO excited and knew that our mom had to do it. And this is when we learned about the “rope lift”! Basically, the lines tend to get a bit shorter at the end of the day and as long as you are in line for the ride before the park closes, you will get on the ride! So even though the wait time said 45 minutes, it was much less than that we rode it again at the end of the night!
Highlights at Epcot included, The World Showcase, Soarin’ and the boys enjoyed Mission Space.
Day 4: Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom
After the mob we experienced at Hollywood Studios, we arrived even earlier to Animal Kingdom for the rope drop. I can’t remember how much earlier we got to the park, but I think at least an hour and half. And we were AT THE ROPE! And I’m so glad they did because they dropped the rope early! We had rode both Avatar rides even before the park technically opened!
The Pandora Avatar World was so incredible!! The design and landscaping was out of this world. Everything looked so movie-perfect, like we were actually in the world of Avatar. And apparently at night everything glows! Again, I would have loved to stroll around and soak it all in but were on a schedule. The Flight of Passage ride was definitely a highlight and I highly recommend it if you like simulators. This was TOP NOTCH. But you have to have a Fast Pass or rope drop this, it is extremely popular.
We also LOVED the new roller coaster Expedition Everest, it was the most unique roller coaster I have ever been on and I think we rode it three times. We also loved DINOSAUR, and even though the Primeval Whirl was not a fan-favorite amongst my family members, I thought it was a hilarious ride watching everyone get thrown around. Unfortunately, the line for the Kilimanjaro Safari was too long, and we still had one more park to explore!
Last stop, was Disney’s Magic Kingdom. We tried to get a “Minnie Van” between parks, but there was none available at the time. We got a regular Lyft but sadly still had to catch the ferry to Magic Kingdom. It was a bit of delay that we weren’t quite expecting but we made it work.
Some of our favorites at Magic Kingdom were Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, and Space Mountain. For nostalgia, we also rode Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh and Haunted Mansion. But definitely one of the highlights of Magic Kingdom was Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride. This is Magic Kingdom’s newest rollercoaster and this thing was so smooth! It was really fun, and PURE Disney Magic riding it at night watching the fireworks go off around Magic Kingdom. It was the perfect way to end our Disney vacation.
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Day 5: Universal Studio’s Volcano Bay & Disney Springs
Our last stop was Universal Studio’s Volcano Bay. James and I love waterparks and water slides, and we had heard awesome things about Orlando’s newest water park. Expectations were high – and it did not disappoint! Volcano Bay was clean and there were SO many rides to choose from. We loved the Tapu-Tapu wristband, where you “check in” for a ride but then can go play in the lazy river or ride a slide with no wait time, all while holding your place in line! So convenient! Our favorites were no doubt the Krakatau Aqua Coaster and the “Rapid River”. The Rapid River is like a lazy river but you have to wear life jackets, no inner tubes, and it’s FAST! We had so much fun racing each other around this thing.
After Volcano Bay, we showered and headed to Disney Springs again for dinner at the T-Rex café! This place was like Rain Forest Café but on steroids and with dinosaurs. It was SO cool! We really enjoyed walking around checking out all the different sections of the restaurant checking out all the dinos.
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We finished up our shopping at the World of Disney store, the world’s largest Disney store! I added a mug to our coffee time collection, and a Minnie mouse oven mitt.
Day 6: Leave Orlando
We packed up, and left our Airbnb. All of us exhausted. We walked anywhere from 8-10 miles a DAY. But we packed it all in and hit all the Disney Highlights, including our favorite rides from child hood, a few character meet and greets, and all the adult Disney things we wanted to do!
We have our cousin Blake to thank for helping us set up our jam-packed itinerary to hit 4-Disney parks in 2 days, teaching us all the ins and out of Disney fast passes, and Magic bands. Check out our post on our Top 10 Pro Disney Vacation Tips!
We had the best adult Universal and Disney Vacation we could have possibly hoped for in a very short amount of time! This was not a relaxing trip, but it was exciting and action-packed, just the way we like it! Thank you to my mom and dad who made it all possible!
Disney On,
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Bear trip ever!!
Brought it all back. Thanks for posting!
It was the best trip ever! It was such a fun one to write 🙂 can’t wait to go again!