Our next park was Hollywood Studios. As we arrived, there were cast members waiting for us with baskets of snacks – Skittles, chips, etc – and bottled water. We weren’t expecting this, but it was a very nice little touch since we were getting hungry. We headed straight for Toy Story Land – Luke and I had seen the land on our December trip, but it was the first time for many of our group. We went to Slinky Dog Dash – the first time riding for Luke and I! The queue for this ride is great, I love the small details that Disney incorporates – like the price sticker that references the original release date of Toy Story 1.

Karamie’s eye roll behind me makes me laugh every single time!

Kelly was ready for this picture!

Luke and I had no idea where the camera was for this ride – but clearly Su-Lynn and Steve knew where to look haha.

Jon and Amanda asked us what else we wanted to do at Hollywood Studios, and there was mention of heading over to Tower of Terror. However, a decision was made to just ride Slinky Dog Dash for a second time – again through the Fastpass line. Also – we clearly still had no idea where the camera was hahaha.

After our second ride on Slinky Dog, we stopped for group photo #2 – and the infamous ChunkyDump was invented by Liesa….

We headed back to the vans, and were instructed to place a mobile order while we drove to park #3 of the day – Animal Kingdom!

Our first stop was Pandora for our third group picture (where the ChunkyDump once again made an appearance) –

We then split up – a few went over to Navi River while the rest of us headed to Flight of Passage. Luke and I have been on this ride quite a few times now, but always with a Fastpass so we’ve never seen the standby queue. Jon actually took us into one part of the standby queue to point out one of the murals – I can’t remember what this guy was named, but he shows up during FOP.

We actually had enough of us to fill an entire room for the pre-show, so there were many laughs during this part of the ride…

The ride itself was as fantastic as always! I love taking a few glances around at the other riders, and seeing the pure joy on everyone face’s as they soar on the back of a banshee.

As we exited the ride, we were told to click the “I’m here, prepare my order” button on the orders we had placed from Satu’li Canteen. You can read my review by clicking here 🙂

After our meal – which was much needed, we were all starving by that point – we had a discussion on what to do next, and the decision was made to head over to the Safari.

When we arrived, the line was insane! Even the Fastpass line was backed up, but Jon apparently knew every cast member we met that day, and led us into the handicapped line. We still had quite a bit of a wait, but eventually we boarded our vehicle and set off on a safari together!

Enjoy the following onslaught of obligatory safari pictures:

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Once we finished our safari, we realized we were running out of time on our VIP Tour, and we still wanted to get to Park #4 of the day. A few people decided to stay at Animal Kingdom, while the rest of us went back to the vans and headed off to Magic Kingdom. When we arrived, cast members were once again waiting for us with bottled water and baskets of snacks. Jon and Amanda took us down the pathway that’s typically used for the Halloween/Christmas parties so we could avoid the crowds on Main Street. We stopped for our group photo in the Hub – we had successfully completed all four parks in one day (actually, all 4 parks in 7 hours!).

Quite a few of us pulled out the ChunkyDump for this group picture…

We were basically out of time, but were told we had time for one single ride. We quickly all agreed upon Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, so we headed back to Fantasyland. Once we had entered the Fastpass line, Jon and Amanda said their goodbyes, and gave each of a VIP pin (with strict instructions to not trade or sell it).

SDMT is an ok ride, I enjoy it at least once every trip, but I would never wait hours in the standby queue for it. I am very happy we got to go on it as part of our tour however, as this ended up being the only time Luke and I went on it during our entire two week trip.

Jackie managed to Mike Wazowski me in the second picture hahaha –

And with that, our amazing VIP Tour had ended! Once we exited, we said “See you later”, and split into smaller groups. Luke and I had grabbed a Fastpass for Buzz Lightyear, which we were already in the window for.

It was a pretty big day – for the first time ever, I actually beat Luke! I tend to destroy him at Toy Story Midway Mania, but he has my number when it comes to Space Ranger Spin – but I won! Of course I had to take pictures to document the moment!

We stopped for a few pictures –

It was then time to head out of the park for our supper reservation! For the second night in a row, we were eating at Homecomin’ – what can I say, we’re big fans! We did at least change up our typical orders – you can read my review here.

After another satisfying meal at Homecomin’, we took a leisurely stroll around Disney Springs. I didn’t take many pictures, but we enjoyed some window shopping and a very slow-paced evening. At one point we decided to stop for a beverage that was on our must-try list: the Mango Moscato wine slushy from Amorette’s Patisserie, $9.

This was so good! I don’t love mango flavour, but I do love moscato! I’m a huge fan of all these new adult slushies that are popping up everywhere – it’s a trend I can definitely get behind! We enjoyed this so much – it was not the only one we had on this trip 🙂

We called it an early night – Jetlag was still kicking us in the butt, and we had a busy itinerary for the next few days!

Our original plan for this day, our first park day of our trip, looked something like this:

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A pretty standard Magic Kingdom day, with an evening at Disney Springs…

A few weeks before leaving for this trip however, one of the ladies from the Disboards who was a part of the Epic Girls Weekend messaged us all, asking who would be around on May 2nd and have a park hopper ticket. Another Disboarder, who has asked to remain anonymous, had decided to gift us with a VIP Tour that day! I couldn’t believe it, it was honestly one of those crazy bucket list items Luke and I had, but never believed we could make it happen due to the high cost associated with it. For those who aren’t aware of what this even is, you can read a bit more here on the Disney website. Basically, you hire a tour guide (or a plaid, named for their plaid vests that they wear) for a minimum of 7 hours at a cost of $425/hour (in the low season – pricing will increase during peak seasons) – so $3000. This allows up to ten guests – we actually had 19 of us on our tour which required two tour guides…

Anyways, once we found out what this amazing, kind-hearted benefactor had offered to us, Luke and I canceled our fastpasses and our breakfast reservation at 1900 Park Fare. I will make it there at some point, on some future trip! Strawberry soup for breakfast?! Count me in! We decided to hold on to our Homecomin’ reservation just in case we had time though – it’s our favourite so we figured we’d risk the chance of paying a no-show fee if we had to.

That morning, I was feeling a bit of jet-lag, especially with the red-eye flight the day before, so we decided to sleep a few extra minutes and just call a Lyft to take us to the park instead of using the Disney buses. This actually turned out to be well worth it, since the security lines on the bus side were insane that morning, but our Lyft dropped us off on the side where people parking their cars enter – so there was maybe one single person in line ahead of us at security.

Since we had cancelled our breakfast reservation, we just ate leftover Cheddar Drop Biscuits from Homecomin’ – a fantastic breakfast option if you ask me! I was so nervous though, I could only manage to eat about half of one – I had pitched an idea almost a year prior to a few girls on Facebook who I met through the Disboards about setting up a meet-up trip – and I was about to meet over a dozen of them today! We even had our own logo for the trip, designed by the wonderful Su-Queen <3

Once we were through security and found the correct line to scan into the park – it was an extra magic hours morning – we entered a mostly empty, slightly wet park:

We headed straight for Guest Services to the right of Spaceship Earth, afraid we were going to be late. We ended up being the third ones there – Karamie had also taken a Lyft over, and our incredible new anonymous friend had drove, so we had all entered from the much quieter side of security. We all introduced ourselves, and I handed out the first of my Canadian treat bags I had prepared 🙂

Eventually, the rest of our group made it through the crazy long security lines and joined us. Our two Plaids for the day arrived, introduced themselves and handed out rain ponchos to each of us just in case. I’ve always been too cheap to buy myself one of the Disney rain ponchos ($13USD for something I can get from the Dollarama for $3CAD? Pass.) – but they are actually well made and quite thick! I brought ours home with me to save for future trips.

At 8:37am, we approached our first ride of the day – Test Track. We entered through the Fastpass line with our VIP Guides – we felt pretty special all day!

Luke and I worked together to design our car – our goal is always ugly. We call this one “An Ode to Alberta” due to it’s sweet lift-kit. Behold its beauty:

I also have this picture of someone else’s car – I think it’s Karamie’s?

Each car on Test Track only holds 6 people, but there were 19 of us so obviously we had to split up into smaller groups. We sat with Karamie, and her car kicked our car’s butt in the simulations haha. I also stole these next two pictures from Lesley, since they are hilarious haha:

And of course, our on-ride photo:

It was Military Appreciation Month in the US, so the Blue Angels were doing a special fly-over of Spaceship Earth that morning. We went and found a spot to stand with a great view, and spent a few minutes chatting and getting to know each other.

I had asked about a month prior to going if anyone wanted anything in particular from Canada, and Billie had responded with Ryan Reynolds – so I presented her with her very own Ryan for the front of her scooter during this time haha. Someone had a bandaid in their bag, and used that to stick him on there…

At 9:30am, the Blue Angels did their first flyover of Spaceship Earth:

An announcer came over the speakers in the park to let everyone know to stay put, as there would be a second flyover once they were back into position. We once again had our camera ready, and captured the second flyover:

This was so amazing to see – and I’m not even American. I’m so glad we took the time to see this!

Our VIP Guides, Jon and Amanda, gathered us together again and led us off to Norway. Our next ride was Frozen Ever After – which we once again entered through the Fastpass line. I love Frozen, and I love this ride – I never rode Maelstrom, so this is all I know for the Norway Pavilion. For this ride, we sat with Jackie, Caroline and Kelly – and the rest of our boat was filled with random strangers.

After Frozen, our VIP Tour Guides took us out a side door I had never noticed before that allowed us to skip the gift shop. We headed back to Future World for our final stop at Epcot – Soarin’. Again, we entered the Fastpass line – by 10:15am we had been through the fastpass line for all three tier one rides at Epcot! This VIP Tour was really spoiling me!

Nice work pal!

Again, another picture stolen from Lesley –

Our group took up almost two full rows, and the ride was as great as always!

Afterwards, we took our first official group photo before heading out a Cast Member’s Only door to our awaiting vans.

We split into two groups. I was in the van that Amanda drove, but she didn’t really say much as we drove through backstage areas to our next park. It was pretty cool to drive through the backstage of Epcot to see some of the Festival booths not currently in use, the construction on the Guardians of the Galaxy Coaster, etc. We were not allowed to take any photos while in the backstage areas, so nothing to share, sorry.