Our 2012 Walt Disney World Vacation pt. 4 & 5

Day 4 & 5 - Thursday, May 24, 2012 & Friday, May 25, 2012

Before moving on to Day 5 of our 2012 trip, you may be wondering what happened to Day 4?! We decided to take Thursday, May 24^th as a “day off”. If you've ever been on a Disney vacation and enjoy doing as much as possible like us, you know that a vacation day on your vacation is sometimes necessary!  We had been waking up early and staying out late with little rest in between so we figured this would be a great mid-point refresher.

We slept in... a bit before heading to an outlet mall in the area around 9:00am. We arranged for a taxi to take us to the Lake Buena Vista Factory Outlet stores. This mall was smaller than its counterpart across the street and didn't have as many top-brand stores. We visited Old Navy, Fossil, Reebok and the Gap along with a Disney Outlet store that wasn't anything to write home about.

We took another taxi over to the Walmart Super Centre. At that point, our city didn't have any super centres so we were impressed with the sheer size of the store. We enjoyed the fact that the Walmart’s in America sell alcohol (where we’re from, alcohol is sold in its own store). We picked up a few Disney items and found the Red Ryder BB Gun from A Christmas Story!

When we got back from shopping, we hung out by the pool and went for a swim. Later that evening, we hit up Downtown Disney for some more shopping and exploring!

After our low-key day we were re-charged and ready for Universal Studios Orlando! We had a 2-day pass for both Universal Parks – Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios but after our “day off” we had to jam both parks into one day! It was a busy, exhausting day but was filled with excitement and adventure! We did almost everything we wanted to in one day!

We had scheduled the same taxi from our shopping trip to pick us up at our hotel Friday morning to take us to Universal Orlando. We've since learned that there are shuttles (such as Mears) that can be arranged to take you to and from Disney parks and attractions at a lower cost.

We began our day in Islands of Adventure. First up – The Incredible Hulk. We’d be lying if we said we weren't slightly nervous about these coasters as they’re a big step up from the majority of Disney’s. While Disney has some fast and exciting coasters, many of Universal’s, like the Hulk, are on a much larger scale. We got in line and had a minimal wait. It was so much fun! Being outside and seeing your surroundings while looping around and ducking under things is a thrill!

After the Hulk we headed over to Doctor Doom’s Fearfall. Similar to the Tower of Terror, you’re strapped in a seat awaiting the clock to tick down before you’re shot up almost 200ft. You get a great view from the top before you plummet back down. While the ride doesn't last all that long, it’s definitely a fun thrill.

We decided to head over to The Amazing Adventures of Spider Man. This was definitely a highlight ride for us. It’s a 3D type ride that has you sitting in a motion vehicle while you dodge explosions. It has a great mix of 3D and actual effects (like fire and water).

Next it was time to get wet. We started at Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges. After getting soaked on the Kali River Rapids at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Ellen decided to sit this one out and avoid being soaked... which, if you keep reading, didn't last too long. So Ryan took one for the team and rode it solo. Since we were in the area, we decided to do Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls.  We love that this flume ride features a Canadian Mounty! Oh, did we mention we got SOAKED?! Ellen’s plan to avoid being dripping wet didn’t last long after this ride.

Our last ride before heading over to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was the Jurassic Park River Adventure. We were in line to be in the second row but after a few the ladies in front of us saw the returning riders, they asked if we would switch with them in the hopes of not getting too wet. We were already pretty wet so we gladly accepted the front row seats!

After Jurassic Park, we excitedly headed over to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. First up – Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. This is a simulated ride with a lot of thrills and suspense. While we both felt fine after riding, some people find it to be a little nauseating with all the screens and twists and turns.

After riding (and surviving) the Incredible Hulk earlier that morning, we were completely stoked to do the Dragon Challenge and because Ellen is awful at directions and paying attention, we ended up in the line for front-row seats. This a great roller coaster full of suspense and anxiety!

We built up a solid appetite from all of our excitement and before heading over to Universal Studios, we stopped in Seuss Landing and had some lunch at Circus McGurkus.

Refueled and ready for our next adventure, we headed into Universal Studios. This park’s attractions are centred on various movies and the entertainment industry. The first attraction we visited was Shrek 4-D. This is a theatre-style show, similar to It’s Tough to be a Bug at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It’s funny, interactive and tons of fun.

At this point, we were looking for a little more thrill so when we spotted the Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket, we knew we had to get on this one. The scariest part of this ride of us is the ascent - you climb almost vertically before you drop and pick up speed all while listening to your favourite song!

Ryan had done Twister...Ride it Out when he was younger and remembered how... uneventful it was, so much so that he insisted I experience it too. So we headed into the queue and experienced a “Twister”. We talked about it with friends who went in 2013 & loved it but we feel it could be so much better.

Next up was the Revenge of the Mummy. This is an enclosed roller coaster ride with a bunch of thrills and twists. I didn't have high hopes for it but it was a lot of fun! Next we did Disaster! which is part interactive tour and part ride where volunteers from the group create a movie scene that is then played out while you’re on a subway that experiences a disaster!

After Disaster, we did the Men in Black: Alien Attack which is similar in style to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. We finished off our jam-packed day at Universal with the Simpsons Ride which is a simulated rollercoaster and one of our favourites from the day!

Our trip to Universal Orlando was a busy non-stop adventure. We were exhausted by the end of the day but were impressed by how much we accomplished and all the fun we had. We would recommend taking the two days, one day for each park – which we did on our most recent trip. With decently easy transportation from Walt Disney World to Universal Orlando, so many thrill rides and roller coasters, Universal Orlando is a great addition to a Disney vacation and a part of our trips that we really look forward to.

Must-Do Attractions at Disney's Magic Kingdom

Even if you don't plan to visit all four of Disney's theme parks during a Disney vacation, there is no doubt that you will want to head over to the Magic Kingdom and check out all that it has to offer including Cinderella's iconic castle acting as an amazing centerpiece when you first enter through the main gates! 

Entrance to the Magic Kingdom

Disney's Magic Kingdom has an excellent mix of rides for the young and young at heart, opportunities to meet all of your favorite Disney characters and witness one of the best fireworks displays put on by Disney's Imagineers - Wishes! With all that the Magic Kingdom has to offer don't be surprised to spend an entire day and night devoted to it!

During both of our trips to Disney World we have made it a priority to get to the Magic Kingdom before rope drop in the morning for two reasons. The first reason for this is the parks popularity and the fact that it can get busy quite fast. By getting there early we can be close to the main gate when it does open and beat the crowds a little bit. Secondly, the Magic Kingdom holds a welcome show every morning inviting all the guests to enter the park. Of course being Disney, it includes great songs to get you excited to start your day! You'll also see many of your favorite Disney Characters arriving on the Casey Junior Steam engine. The show ends with a countdown and then the gates open and the magic inside begins!

Opening Show at Magic Kingdom

Once you enter the Magic Kingdom you will find yourself walking down the patriotic Main Street U.S.A where you can find great stores and souvenir shops. This is also where you might want to take your first picture with Cinderella's castle - there are a bunch of Cast Members available to take your photo. At the end of the night this may be your best location to watch the nights fireworks display or the Main Street Electrical Parade (the closer you are to the exit while watching the shows, the happier you'll be when leaving the park).

View of Castle from Main Street U.S.A.

Main Street Electrical Parade

Next you will need to decide which section of the park, or what ride you are heading for. In addition to Main Street U.S.A, other sections of the park  include Adventureland, Frontierland, Liberty Square, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland.

We've summarized the major attractions found within each section that we have done & love! Please note that we haven't included everything there is to do in each area.

1. Adventureland - To get to this section of the park take your first left once you have walked through Main Street U.S.A.

Major Attractions & Must Dos:

• Jungle Cruise - a slow moving outdoor boat ride with great animatronic animals and witty tour guides
• Pirates of the Caribbean - a slow moving indoor boat ride starring Captain Jack Sparrow

Secondary Attractions:

• Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room - a theater type show with animatronic singing birds and flowers
• Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride - a slow spinning ride aboard magic carpets

TIPS: We have noticed that Adventureland is often a less crowded section of the park. Although the Jungle Cruise can get busy later in the day,we generally experience a 5-15 minute wait when planned just right. We don't think a Fastpass is absolutely necessary for this area and is better used in other, more popular, areas of the park. We also find the Pirates ride and the Enchanted Tiki room to be nice, air conditioned, options when it gets hot out!

Entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean

Outside of the Enchanted Tiki Room

2. Frontierland- To get to this section of the park you can cut through Adventureland as they are side by side or take your second left after walking through Main Street U.S.A. and stay to the left side, which will have you closer to the castle before you veer off.

Major Attractions and our Must Dos:

• Splash Mountain - a Brer Rabbitt themed flume ride into a brier patch
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - a medium/fast-paced train style roller coaster

Secondary Attractions:

• Walt Disney Railroad - this is more transport than a ride, but you can take a ride on a steam engine to shuttle you to different areas within the park
• Country Bear Jamboree - theater type country singing show with animatronic bears

TIPS: Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Railroad are great thrill rides and can get quite busy so a Fastpass selection for either may be a good/necessary choice here. Also prepare to get a little wet on Splash Mountain... or a lot wet if you are in the front. Country Bear Jamboree is like the Enchanted Tiki room and is great for getting out of the heat. However, depending on the age of people in your group it may not be a crowd favorite but it does have an appeal being a classic/traditional Disney attraction.

Locked up in Frontierland

First run down Splash Mountain in 2012

3. Liberty Square: To get to this section you take the same second left you would for Frontierland, but rather than staying to the left you are going to stay to the right side. Liberty Square is a smaller section of the park and can kind of blend in a little bit with Frontierland and Fantasyland.

Major Attractions and our Must Dos:

• Haunted Mansion - a slow moving roller coaster through a Haunted Mansion; this is Ryan's favorite ride!

Secondary Attractions:

• Hall of Presidents - a theater style show of animatronic Presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama

TIPS: The Haunted Mansion is an amazing ride for all those who love Halloween! This is a family friendly ride that plays to all your senses and is an absolute must do (or in Ryan's case a must do at least 4 times each time were there). If you are a little scared of enclosed, dark spaces there is a portion of this attraction in which riders are closed off into a small room prior to getting on the slow moving coaster that may make you feel a little claustrophobic. The Hall of Presidents is a very patriotic show and the animatronics are pretty impressive, but it is a 25 minute show and you may find that too long to take out of your day if your strapped for time, especially if you end up adding the additional wait time that you may have for a show to start if one is already in progress and needs to clear out.

Some headstones outside of The Haunted Mansion

More outside the Haunted Mansion

4. Fantasyland: This section is found directly behind Cinderella's castle and is most often the busiest section of the park due to the New Fantasyland expansion that has recently opened .

Major Attractions and our Must Dos:

• It's a Small World - a classic slow moving boat ride through a culturally diverse world of animatronic singing kids
• Prince Charming Regal Carousel - a carousel ride full of fairy tale style horses - can you find Cinderella's horse??
• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train- the newest ride added, this is a Snow White & the Seven Dwarf inspired roller coaster
• Mad Tea Party - colourful spinning tea cups

Secondary Attractions:

• Goofy's Barnstormer - a smaller wooden style roller coaster
• Peter Pan's Flight - a slow moving story ride of Peter Pan and Captain Hook
• Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh - a slow moving story ride featuring Winnie the Pooh & friends

TIPS: It's a Small World, Mad Tea Party and Price Charming's Carousel rides often have short lines and are great for resting your feet or to try out when other lines are too long. Seven Dwarfs Mine train is the newest roller coaster at Magic Kingdom so don't be surprised to see a 90 minute or more wait for this. A Fastpass is a must but may be hard to get due to its popularity right now. In our opinion it didn't necessarily live up to the hype that surrounded it when we were there. Peter Pan and Winnie the Pooh also tend to have long lines because it is a good ride for younger kids, so if you really want to do these rides it may mean you want to pick up a Fastpass for them to optimize your time.

Prince Charming's Carousel Ride upon Cinderella's Horse

Outside Gaston's Tavern

Inside It's a Small World

5. Tomorrowland: To get to this section of the park take your first or second right coming off of Main Street U.S.A.

Major Attractions and our Must Dos: 

• Space Mountain - an indoor roller coaster in the dark; One of Ellen's favorite rides at the Magic Kindom!
• Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin - an interactive slow moving ride where you shoot at targets; Ellen's perfect high score has earned her the title "Galactic Hero"

Secondary Attractions: 

• Carousel of Progress - a slow moving ride demonstrating various inventions over time
• Stitch's Great Escape - a theater style show where an alien (Stitch) tries to escape capture
• Astro Orbiter - an outdoor slow spinning rocket ride
• Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover - a slow moving transportation ride where you can get a birds eye view of Tomorrowland
• Tomorrowland Speedway - a go-kart ride

TIPS: Space Mountain is a very popular ride so if you want to avoid long lines, you should go to it first thing in the morning. Alternatively, it is defiantly worth the use of a Fastpass. Buzz Lightyear can be be busy at times but we have never used a Fastpass for it and, at most, have only experienced 30 minute wait times - which is pretty good.

Outside Space Mountain

Riding Space Mountain

Inside Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin

There is no doubt that the Magic Kingdom is a truly magical place to be both during the day and at night. There is so much to do and see throughout the park you will not leave disappointed. We hope that our overview, comments and tips are helpful for you in your planning and preparing for your next trip to the Magic Kingdom and gave you a peek into how amazing this park is from our point of view! 

Be sure to check back regularly for additional reviews of the Magic Kingdom & all of the other Disney Parks - we'll be looking at dining options, shows, shopping & more!

Rapunzel's Tower

Cinderella's Castle at Night

Saving for Walt Disney World

Saving for a Walt Disney World Vacation can seem like a daunting and impossible task; and for us, this was definitely the case. After receiving our first trip together as a generous gift from Ryan’s parents, we had no idea of when we’d be able to return on our own dime. Both somewhat recent grads, looking to start our careers in a tough job market, we had no expectations of making it back to Disney anytime soon after our 2012 trip.

We both got great full time jobs shortly after school and made the decision to move in together! Ryan had been living on his own since he started university and Ellen had opted to stay at home during university. We were pretty excited... and nervous about taking this step (we had been dating for nearly four years at that point). With such a big change and added expenses, saving for a Disney trip seemed like a long-lost thought. After discussing the possibility and crunching some numbers, we found out that we could comfortably live and save for another Disney trip!

Ellen had a bit of money set aside from various graduation and birthday gifts, but we pretty much started saving from scratch. We determined how much we needed to save each month and started a Disney Jar – more on that in a bit! 

Back tracking a bit, let’s have a look at some of the discussions and decisions that were made that allowed us to determine we could save up for a Disney vacation!

• The first consideration, and perhaps one of the largest, is where to stay? For us, staying on resort was a must. We loved the ease and fun of it so much last time, that it was a no-brainer this time around!

• Next was to consider which resort we wanted to stay on. We had previously stayed at Disney’s All Star Movies Resort in 2012 and absolutely loved it! We considered going back there again this time around but eventually decided it would be nice to check out all of the value resorts. Seeing that Ryan is a sports fan, and neither of us are into music all that much, we decided on All Star Sports. Knowing the cost of your resort is a huge factor in planning and saving. Had we decided to stay at a moderate resort, for example, we would have needed more time to save or larger amounts of savings per month. If you’re on moderate budget and don’t want to break the bank on a weeks’ vacation – we highly recommend the value resorts. They’re clean & modern and great for guests looking for a standard room after a full day at the parks.

Disney's All Star Sports Resort

To budget how much we needed to save for dining we discussed what type of dining we wanted to experience. The result was unanimous – quick service! Like we've mentioned in other posts, we aren't fancy people. We enjoy low-key, familiar food so quick service was the best option for us. Plus we wanted the majority of our time for rides and attractions, not sitting a table-service meal! We considered working in a table service meal here or there but ultimately didn't have the desire to do so. We find the quick service restaurants at Disney to be affordable (in comparison to table service restaurants) and delicious! We estimated how much each meal would cost us (approximately $10 each) x 3 meals per day + snacks. Of course, breakfasts were cheaper and some dinners were a bit over the $10 mark, but it gave us a solid guideline to save. 

• A great way to add extra value to your Disney Vacation Package is to keep an eye out for new special offers! We booked our trip in February for June 2014 through our travel agent who told us they would upgrade our package to include any new offers that became available between February and June. This worked out great for us! We ended up adding free Hopper Passes to our package and got a fifth park ticket for free! While these weren't things we planned on adding to our package, it was great to have them added for free!

• In addition to the hotel/flight and dining planning, we also had to plan on saving for additional costs such as tips, transportation costs (to Universal) and souvenirs. We did some research on transportation off-resort via Mears Bus Transportation and were able to add that into our overall savings plan. We each had a few souvenirs in mind that we wanted to bring so we budgeted accordingly for some extra spending.

Our Disney Saving Jar 

After we picked the resort we wanted to stay at, we had to look at dining costs – another large expense when planning a Disney vacation. While some prefer to save money by buying groceries off-resort, part of the vacation for us is dining at restaurants. We opted not to purchase the Disney dining plan again as we determined it would cost more than buying our meals out of pocket would. However, had we been given the option to add a Disney dining plan to our package for free, we would've been all over that! Disney often offers free dining plans as a promotion to those staying on resort  during non-peak periods such as September - December. 

Having a small portion of money previously put aside, Ellen began saving monthly. Ryan, who has a second hobby job, was able to save different amounts of money away at different times. When we had the money saved, we paid for our trip in full through our travel agent. We continued to save for our dining and extra spending up until June as scheduled.

You might be wondering how we saved this money... or, maybe you don’t care at all. To make it more tangible and concrete, we used our Disney Jar. This is just a plain old mason jar that we stuck a label on. We got this idea from watching Gail Vaz-Oxlade; a financial planner and host of a number of shows here in Canada such as Princess, Till Debt do Us Part and Money Moron in which she helps individuals save their money and plan out their financial matters. Thinking about it now, it would be fun to fully Disney-fy it. We each put our money in the jar as planned and before we knew it – we had plenty! When we knew we reached the number, we separated each portion into separate categories – Ellen’s spending, Ryan’s spending, tips, transportation to Universal, and divided each dining allowance by day. It made it so much easier to stay organized and on-budget when we arrived at Disney!

While this method of saving may not be for everyone, it works great for us. We’re pretty strict about not using debt to buy things we want. While it’d be easy to go on vacation and just throw the cost on a credit card, it would take a lot of the fun out of it for us. Saving, step by step, is a great way to look forward to your vacation and ensure you have a worry and debt-free time once in Disney World!