We had spent 2 full days in the parks, accomplishing most of our priorities and feeling very satisfied with our half days in each park. For our final park day, we had Early Entry starting at 8:30 a.m. until about 8:00 in the evening before we headed back to the airport for our late night flight. I asked each person in the family their top priority for our last day...either something we didn't get to do or something they wanted to do again. Staley wanted to do Tower of Terror. Briggs wanted to ride Slinky Dog Dash again. Adelie wanted to ride the Little Mermaid ride again. Zach, with the power of his new motion sickness bands, wanted to give Flight of Passage a try...and he really wanted to see the bird show. And I wanted to accomplish the 4 Park Challenge: Visiting all 4 theme parks in one day while doing at least one ride, eating at least one park-specific snack, and taking at least one picture by the park icon.
Although we were all a bit weary from our epic Disney day the previous day, I bounced everyone out of bed in time get ready, load our suitcases back into the car, and grab a snack to eat as we walked over to Early Entry at Hollywood Studios. Park #1: Picture-Check!
Staley and I headed to Tower of Terror, Adelie and Briggs lined up for Slinky Dog Dash, and after dropping the littles off in their line, Zach popped over to do Toy Story Mania. Because most people at Hollywood Studios rope drop either Slinky Dog Dash or Rise of the Resistance, Staley and I were able to loop Tower of Terror twice with no wait. Rides-Check!
Adelie and Briggs had the longest wait of the family for Slinky Dog Dash (which they apparently used to take LOTS of selfies on the family phone), so we all met up in Toy Story Land after our rides and walked over to Star Wars Land for our Hollywood Studios snack. We shared 3 Ronto Wraps, which were really yummy. The consensus among the kids was that the breakfast Ronto Wrap was better than the regular one, although I thought they were both delicious. Snack-Check!
After our snack and a little stroll through Star Wars Land (Zach's favorite themed land at Disney), we hopped a bus and headed over to Animal Kingdom. Park #2: Picture-Check!
On the way there, I was able to grab us some single Lightning Lane passes for Flight of Passage. While we waited for our Lightning Lane time, we wandered around the Tree of Life, checking out some of the wildlife...both real and specifically Disney.
We walked through the Maharaja Jungle Trek and were able to see the new baby tiger, Bakso. We had heard that he's not always out or visible, so we felt lucky as he was very visible and active...and super cute!
After our animal viewing, we headed over to catch the bird show. It's always a highlight! I'm glad we got to enjoy the full version since it's one of our favorite Animal Kingdom shows.
After our bird show, it was time to head over to Pandora for our Flight of Passage Lightning Lane. Zach tried this ride on one of our early trips, and it made him really sick. With the help of his new magical bands, he handled it just fine and loved it. Briggs rode for the first time and, much in Briggs fashion, he was nervous before riding it and was declaring it his new favorite ride afterwards. Flight of Passage for the family win! Ride-Check!
After riding Flight of Passage, Zach and the kids checked out the Pandora gift shop while I went to get our Animal Kingdom snack of Pongu Lumpia (yummy pinapple-cream cheese spring rolls) and Night Blossom frozen apple/pear limeade drink with Boba Balls. The Pongu Lumpia were good, but the Night Blossom might have been my highlight snack of the day. Snack-Check!
After our snack, we popped back into the Pandora gift shop so Adelie could purchase a shoulder banshee with her souvenir money. Then we hopped aboard a bus to make our way over to...
Magic Kingdom! Park #3: Picture-Check!
We were planning to do Adelie's priority ride, Little Mermaid. However, the line was 40 minutes long. We offered that we could wait in line or she could choose a different priority for the day. As Little Mermaid is a ride that, over all our years of Disney trips, we've rode more than any other ride, Adelie shifted her priority to doing the Moana water area at Epcot instead. So instead, we went to the Monster's Inc Laugh Floor show (always a hoot!) and then rode the People Mover. After that, since there was no line for the Tomorrowland Speedway, Adelie, Briggs, and I did that one too. Rides-Check!
For our snack, I had landed on the Mickey Waffle from Sleepy Hollow Refreshments topped with Nutella and fresh fruit. It was really good! However, on a whim, I also grabbed a Chesire Cat Tail from the Chesire Cafe as we were walking by as I'd read that they were good. It was delicious!! I had only gotten one, so everyone just got one bite, but it might have been the best snack of the day. Snacks-Check! (I had tried to take photos of our snacks, but usually they were already being eaten or cut up to be shared by the time I thought to photograph them, so no photo evidence of the yumminess we tried throughout the day.)
After our Magic Kingdom snack, we hopped the monorail over to our last park of the day, Epcot. Park #4: Picture-Check!
We headed over to the Moana water area again so we could fulfill Adelie's priority for the day. Then we popped over to Soarin' as we noticed the wait time was low, so our last official ride of the trip was the family favorite, Soarin'. Ride-Check!
After that, we were thinking about dinner so we headed into World Showcase and decided to eat at La Cantina de San Angel. The food was really good, and I was proud of Adelie and Briggs for actually ordering Mexican food at a Mexican restaurant as they got the tacos rather than the chicken strips or mac and cheese. Progress! And then, out of necessity, we got the churros for dessert...if only to be able to see Adelie's 'churro face.' (Random story...you can ask the girls about it.) Snack-Check!
I did actually have a different snack picked out for Epcot, but by this time everyone in the family was full and had quite the multitude of sweet treats throughout the day, so we counted the churros as our Epcot snack. We wandered back through World Showcase. Briggs then asked if we had time to ride the Skyliner before heading to the airport. I felt like we did (maybe not the consensus opinion), so we rode the Skyliner to the Caribbean Beach resort and back before walking back to our hotel/car and heading to the airport.
Our return flight left Orlando at 10:20 p.m. The joy of the late night flight? No lines at security, a mostly empty airport, and only a half-full flight. We all had space to spread out, and we all slept on the flight. We gained an hour on the way home, which was nice. So we got to Chicago a little before midnight, and then the kids slept the entire ride home...which was good since they all had to go to school that day.
We were discussing how things have changed over the years since we first started taking the kids to Disney. On the one hand, there was something so magical about doing everything for the first time and seeing everything new through the eyes of your child. The excitement about seeing a parade. Jumping up and down when meeting characters. Getting so excited about every little ride or activity. Autograph books and hugs and character meals and princess dresses.
On the other hand, it is so much easier now that the kids are older. They are more independent. They like the same rides as us. No strollers. No meltdowns. No working around nap times or bedtime. We can eat wherever and whenever we want. We can get up early and stay up late. We can walk over 15 miles every day and no one complains or needs to be carried. A Disney vacation with older kids is just more relaxing...or at least as relaxing as a Disney vacation can be.
We like staying in our own place...although we might choose someplace just a little closer to the parks next time. We like driving our own car...especially when we can avoid riding buses. We like using mobile order and eating at quick service restaurants. I had actually made 4 restaurant reservations prior to our trip. They were all ones that I had to work a bit to get, and I was excited about them all. However, I ended up cancelling all of them (except T-Rex) just so we could enjoy the freedom of eating when we wanted and not taking up our precious park time with long sit down or crazy expensive meals.
Our Disney experiences evolve with each trip we take. I might have pushed my family a bit too hard with our marathon Disney day followed by Early Entry (or so I've been told), but there were also some things we really liked about our trip this time. We really liked park hopping and condensing our park days. We really liked trying some of the different snacks and treats. We really liked the new rides we got to try and the new things we got to do. We really liked doing more and more of the 'bigger' rides as a family. And, of course, we all loved escaping the gray, cold, Illinois winter for the blue skies and sunshine of Florida.
We all got to do and try new things this trip. Zach found some new freedoms with his magic motion bands. I finally got to do Haunted Mansion and Rise of the Resistance and It's Tough to Be a Bug. Are there still things we didn't get to do or see? Absolutely. But I love that we made the most of the time we had, and everyone got to experience those things that were most important to them.
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It was a great trip! And with the new ability to ride more rides and the ease of traveling with our older kids and the reduced park days and the fun rest days, Zach even joined in the "next time we go to Disney" conversation. I guess that means it's time to start planning our next trip!
