Trip Report - 1/31 to 2/5

[MDmomof2]

I love trip reports so I thought I'd do one myself. Hopefully I can keep it brief!  It was me, DH, DD (11) and DS (8).

We arrived at night on Thursday, 1/31 to stay at French Quarter.  We've been once before (Sept of 2017) and stayed at Riverside.  I liked FQ a lot better! It's smaller so you are not far from anything.  We opted to pick up our luggage and take it on the ME as our flight arrived at 7:30 and we didn't want to wait for our luggage at the hotel.  The bus came quickly but made 2 stops before dropping us off so we got to our room close to 9 pm. I was glad we already had our stuff with us!

Friday 2/1 - MK Day.  We ended up getting there early enough to rope drop, which we weren't expecting. I enjoyed the opening ceremony.  We went to Haunted Mansion with just a 5 minute wait, then DH and DD had a fast pass for Big Thunder Mountain.  After that we had a reservation at Crystal Palace. We did the dining plan, but just QS so we paid for this out of pocket. DD LOVES Pooh and this is what she requested. We saw all the characters and had yummy food!  Having done this twice, I don't think we'd do it again as it's SO expensive.  We had a FP for Pirates and DH and DD did Splash Mountain.  We were able to get another FP, this one for Jungle Cruise in the afternoon so we ate some Dole Whip (YUM!), popped over to It's a Small World with a 20 minute wait (a classic!), and watched the Country Bear Jamboree (Eh, seems dated) in the meantime. We also shopped in a Christmas shop and had the ornament delivered to our resort - I wasn't aware of that feature!  We rode Jungle Cruise and then left.  We felt like we really cleaned out AdventureLand and Frontier Land, which was our goal!

Saturday 2/2 - Epcot and HS.  We got to Epcot right at 9 am and DH and DD hopped on Mission Space (the pukey one!) even though they had a later FP.  DS and I got on Spaceship Earth. Then we went to do our Soarin FP.  This is a family favorite - we all love this ride.  It was only about 10:30 at this point and we tried to get  FPs for HS and there was nothing until 7 pm that night and nothing in Toy Story Land! I was honestly a little surprised. This was a flaw in our plan. We should have planned for FPs for our afternoon park as we could have easily done Epcot rides with little wait.  We then did Turtle Talk with Crush and he spoke to both DS and me!  Our goal after that was to see more of the World Showcase. We ate a snack in France and did the entire circle, not exploring much of any one country - it was all the kids had patience for.  We then made our second error of the day - DS wanted to ride the Monorail so we took it to MK expecting to transfer to a bus to HS.  Only the monorail takes you to the MK Transportation Center and from there you need to take a different monorail to MK - which had a huge line. So a cast member recommended that we take the monorail to the Polynesian (no line) then a bus to HS.  Only we missed the bus to HS and it was nearly 40 minutes before another arrived!  We were debating the wisdom of park hopping as it got a bit hot and we were all hungry. HS was packed and after a mishap with mobile ordering it took a long time for us to eat. But we all gathered a little energy after lunch.  DH and DD did Tower of Terror (45 minute wait) and Star Tours (20 minute wait) while DS and I walked around Toy Story Land and checked out some Star Wars stuff. I wish we could have done Toy Story Mania but there were no FPs to be had a 60+ minute wait. Slinky Dog Dash looked awesome!  But again,  no FPs and a 2+ hour wait.  We called it quits around 3:30 pm and the kids swam in the pool for a bit.

Sunday 2/3 - AK.  This park was projected to be a 5 out of 10 on the crowd calendar but it was crowded and they later changed it to a 9 out of 10. It was packed! We arrived around 9 am and it took us a good 20 minutes to get through bag check and the line - one of the longest waits we had.  We had FPs for Expedition Everest (not all of us),  Safari, and Flight of Passage.  Totally worth it!  We walked around the Jungle Trek and Gorilla Falls and liked seeing all of the animals and birds. That's exactly what I wanted to do!  The kids spent some time in the Boneyard in Dinoland - even at age 11 my DD enjoyed it.  DH and DD ate a Pizzafari and DS and I ate somewhere in Dinoland.  The chicken nuggets are very good!  We enjoyed just wandering this park and left around 3 pm.  We rested for a bit then went back to MK for dinner (Launching Pad - very meh) and the fireworks show. The show was GREAT and I'm so glad we did it. We got a spot around 7:30 then sat on the ground until the show started at 8 pm.  After the show DH and DD got on Space Mountain with only a 20 minute wait and DS and I had dessert.

Monday - 2/4 - MK.  We tried to rope drop but the bus was slow from FQ and the lines were long at the entrance - probably 20 minutes.  We had a FP for Peter Pan, then breakfast at Be Our Guest. We love the atmosphere here and at breakfast it's QS so a good deal.  We then rode on the Carousel and had a FP for Dumbo that DH got that morning.  We were not able to get Winnie the Pooh, which isn't our favorite ride but we all love Pooh!  DH and DD went to HS to ride the Rock N Roller Coaster.  They had a 60 minute wait but it was really the only other thing they wanted to do so they were willing to wait.  DS and I had lunch at Pecos Bill's, more Dole Whip, and one more ride on Small World.  We left the park just before 3 pm as everyone was lining up for the Patriots parade.  The kids swam when we got back and we went to the resort arcade after dinner.

Tuesday - 2/5 - headed home. We were all sad to leave!  The ME picked us up 3 hours before our flight and made 2 additional stops, so we got to the airport about 2 hours early and breezed through security.

DH and DD LOVE all things Disney and he is already planning another trip after Star Wars Land opens.

[Zoly]

We were at AK on Sunday as well and it was just insane. We were trying to get there early so SIL and BIL could do FOP (we had done it earlier in the week), and they still had to wait two hours despite getting in before park opening.