WDW Spring Break 2015

Friday, March 6

We left Atlanta around 12:45 pm and arrived at WDW at 7:30 pm.  These were our Magic Bands for this trip.  I love A Bug's Life, as I have previously mentioned!

Atta & Flik

We stayed at Wilderness Lodge, which is a beautiful resort.  We've stayed here a few times in the past and have loved it every time.  Our room number was 1159, which was easy to remember as one minute until midnight - fitting with the release of Cinderella this week!  Here are some photos from our room and around the resort:

Shower tiles - Meeko and Bambi?  ADORABLE!

spotted these wandering through the parking lot

Once we had checked in and dropped our luggage off in the room, we drove over to Epcot.  We had a fast pass from Soarin' from 8:00 – 9:00 that we were determined to put to use.  The Flower and Garden Festival had just begun a few days earlier, so there were awesome character topiaries all around the park.

Snow White

Doc

Grumpy

Happy

Sleepy

Bashful

Sneezy

Dopey

Tramp & Lady

Beast and Belle

Prince Charming and Cinderella

Winnie the Pooh

Bambi

Minnie and Mickey

Dale, Donald, and Chip

Pluto

We had a late dinner at Via Napoli in the Italy pavilion and we highly recommend this restaurant.  The pizza is amazing!  It's no deep-dish pizza like our days in Chicago, but it is soooo good.  After dinner, we went to the American pavilion to see The American Adventure, which always brings me to tears.

Spirit Of Knowledge

"Golden Dream" lyrics

The park was closing at 11:00 pm, so by the time we made it all the way around to the front, we were among the very last people there.  I love an empty park!  I wish we could have stayed there all night, just to wander around!  Our car was the only one in that section of the parking lot by the time we left!

Saturday, March 7

We went back to Epcot in the morning to see the rest of the Flower and Garden Festival offerings.  The park is already beautiful, but the addition of so many colorful flowers makes me love it even more.

Elsa and Anna

The Lion King

Pumbaa and Timon

Peter Pan and Captain Hook

We took the monorail over to Magic Kingdom for a little while, mostly because I wanted to get a photo of the MK sign from the monorail.  As a general rule, we like to drive everywhere we go, or take a taxi if necessary.  We find the "complimentary transportation" to be ridiculously inefficient.  But for the sake of the photo, we drove to Epcot and took the monorail to MK.  It turned out to be much busier than we had anticipated, and we don't really do crowds, so we took the boat back to Wilderness Lodge.  We had read about Territory Lounge, and decided to check it out.  We discovered a completely awesome snack there:  truffle fries.  They were so delicious that we had them three nights in a row – no joke!  We went over to Art of Animation for dinner and to Port Orleans French Quarter for beignets before calling it a night.

Sunday, March 8

We had breakfast at Whispering Canyon Café before heading over to DHS.  We went on Toy Story Midway Mania and Star Tours, and then to The Great Movie Ride, which we hadn't been on in at least 15 years.  We were quickly reminded why we don't ever bother with it.  I've never liked this attraction, and my disgust with the removal of the Sorcerer's Hat to showcase the theater has really turned me against it.  It is in need of some serious updating to make it at all relevant.  HUGE waste of time.  Not worthy of being an attraction in a Disney park, in my opinion.

After that disappointment, we went over to the Frozen sing-along.  This was our first time seeing this show, and we weren't sure what to expect, but it was pretty cute.  There were two narrators who told the story and introduced characters and clips from the movie – both were pretty entertaining, but one kept calling it "ArenDALE" instead of "Arendelle" and it annoyed me to no end.  Nonetheless, the sing-along part was fun, Kristoff, Anna, and Elsa came out on stage at different times, and at the very end, it "snowed" inside the theater.  If you are a fan of Frozen, you'll like this show!

While we were taking a quick break for the best snack in WDW – a carrot cake cookie – we saw a squirrel.  This may not seem interesting if you're not a true Disney fan, but I am always suspicious that each one is King Arthur in disguise.  :-)

Before leaving the park, we went to my favorite attraction at DHS:  One Man's Dream.  I could spend hours in there.  I love Disney history.  That's why I don't care if we ever go on the "rides" when we are at a park.  I am all about the history, the details, the story.  Most of the time, the queue of the ride is better than the actual ride.  One Man's Dream is filled with awesome treasures and I never tire of it.

After DHS, we headed back to Wilderness Lodge to have dinner at Artist Point.  It was our first time eating there, and it is definitely a case of "one and done"…we will not return.  The restaurant's atmosphere is certainly nice, but in all honesty, the food was nothing great, including the dessert, which is usually pretty great at Disney restaurants.  Being vegetarian is sometimes not the easiest thing at WDW, and this was certainly the case at Artist Point.  They were kind enough to accommodate us and get us the truffle fries from Territory Lounge because there vegetarian options are very limited, so we were grateful for that, but overall, we are not fans.  Oh, well…every restaurant can't be a winner!

Monday, March 9

We slept in and then headed to MK for a lunch reservation.  Our plan was to drive, so we could go to Animal Kingdom later on, but as we drove past the TTC, we could see the lines for the monorail and ferry to MK and they were insane.  So we drove back to Wilderness Lodge and took the bus.  As I've mentioned, I am not a fan of the buses.  It seemed to take forever to finally get over there!

Our lunch reservation was at Be Our Guest, and I was super excited about it.  C and I had lunch there once before, and I had dinner there with my mom when we went to WDW for her birthday.  But it is such a beautiful restaurant that I will jump at the chance to go there whenever I can snag a reservation.  I love Beauty and the Beast and it feels like you've stepped right into the movie when you enter the restaurant.  The food is pretty tasty, and the desserts are delicious!

MK was very crowded, so we went on TTA, did a little shopping, and then took a boat back to Wilderness Lodge to drive over to Animal Kingdom.  One of the first things we saw upon our arrival was Dug, from Up.  He is so cute!  Unfortunately, he had just finished his meet-and-greet so I did not get the best photo, but I love him so much!

We rode Expedition Everest and then went to Yak and Yeti for dinner.  We literally ordered the exact same food we had last month because in our opinion, it is the best meal at WDW we have ever had.  We might love certain dishes at other restaurants, but in terms of start to finish, this is the best.

We ended the night back at Territory Lounge for one last basket of truffle fries before calling it a night.  Unfortunately, we had pack because we were getting on the road early the next morning.  Never a fun task!

Tuesday, March 10

We left WDW at 6:30 am and arrived home at 8:00 pm.  C drove the whole way so I could do homework in the car.  It was so great to see our little furry friends and we cannot thank my mom enough for watching them for us while we were gone!

One final thing…we always choose Disney couples for our Magic Bands, and recently started doing the same thing with Starbucks cups when we are at the parks.  Here are the ones from this trip:

Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl from The Incredibles

Star Wars

The Radcliffes from 101 Dalmatians

Happy Tails to you!