Once we had warmed up a bit (it was kind of cold for Florida!) we headed out to our park of the day! This time we did end up having a bit of a wait for a bus, according to the electronic board about 10 minutes. I still wasn’t feeling 100% from the day before, but I decided I had enough time to run to the bathroom inside the main lobby. Of course, the bus didn’t take even close to 10 minutes, and it showed up while I was inside. Luke told the bus driver to go ahead, we’d just wait for the next bus but he was actually ahead of schedule a little bit, and said he was going to wait for a few minutes anyways. I ended up making it with tons of time. Our bus ride was really quick, and fairly empty since it was well past rope drop. It had also started raining again, so that sucked – but it also meant a nearly empty park upon arrival!

After we went through the security line, Luke was approached by a man. It was raining pretty hard at this point, so Luke didn’t fully hear him and thought he was trying to sell him a rain poncho – to which he responded “no thanks”. This was met with a really strange look because the “strange man” was actually a security guard wearing a rain coat, and had told Luke he was selected for additional screening (which just meant he had to go through a metal detector). Oops! We quickly realized our mistake and headed over to the metal detector. After going through and having no issues of course, we grabbed a park map and headed into the nearly empty park. It was about 10:45 at this point, so way too early to go check in for our 11:30 lunch reservation. We studied the map for a bit, and then set off at a leisurely pace – no need to rush. We found the restaurant we were going to though, just so we knew where it was and then went to check on wait times for nearby rides. Star Tours had a posted wait time of only 10 minutes, so we hopped in line. We had loved this ride when we were at Disneyland last April, despite neither of us being Star Wars fans. The wait was pretty much exact, and 10 minutes later we were boarding the ride. The ride itself lasts about 5 minutes. Two of the scenes were from the new movie, which we did not go to see (are we the only two people on the planet who didn’t see that movie?!), but we still had fun! By this point it was about 11:15, so we decided to go check in early for our lunch reservation at 50’s Prime Time Cafe. I was really excited to eat here, as it had been highly recommended by a lot of people I had talked to. My review can be found here.

After settling our bill, we headed out of the restaurant for our First FastPass of the day – which of course was Star Tours. Yes, this was our second time on it that day. Yes, we are not Star Wars fans. Yes, I’ve never actually watched a single movie from the franchise… But it’s a great ride!

After our second journey through the galaxy, we had some time to kill before our next fastpass. I had to go to Pizza Planet – we had just ate lunch so there was no way I was hungry enough to eat again, but I love the Toy Story movies and the little green men. I also knew that it was going to be closing soon for renovations, so I knew I wanted to see it.

It was really cute in there! Hopefully it will be re-opened by our next trip, and I’ll actually eat there!

When I finished my last post, we were at Pizza Planet. After leaving there, we went to Muppet Vision 3D. We both thought it was really cute, but I don’t know if we would do it more than once per trip. For some reason I didn’t take any pictures by the Muppet Theatre… When we got over there we pretty much walked straight in with no wait.

After leaving there, we walked along the Streets of America. The Osbourne Lights were still up, but not turned on (this was also in the early afternoon, so they wouldn’t have been turned on anyways). I’m sad I never had a chance to see the lights in all their glory . When we first started planning our trip, the last night for the lights to be turned on was January 2nd, and we weren’t arriving in Florida until the 5th so we would miss them completely. However, shortly before we arrived in Orlando, I checked again and they had been extended until January 6th – which we already had planned as a Magic Kingdom day. I know a lot of people would have just switched to the 6th being a Hollywood Studios Day, but I would have had to move all of our Fastpasses at that point, as well as dining reservations. I knew I’d never be able to move our Be Our Guest dinner that we had on the 6th, it was so hard to get in the first point! So we just accepted that the Osbourne Lights would be something we’d miss out on. All that said, we were still able to see how many there were! Hopefully they relocate those somewhere else on property for next year!

While we were on the Street of America, we stopped for some Photopass pictures!

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I love that second one! After those pictures we walked along Commissary Lane to the Centre Stage area. We were on our way to the Pixar area, but for some reason we had a really hard time finding it at first. Eventually we found it, and it was time for our second Fastpass of the day – Toy Story Midway Mania! We had been on this ride in California, and it’s essentially the same ride in both parks. I love the theming of the area around it in Florida though, so cute and the attention to detail was fantastic. I can’t wait to see what they do with the Toy Story expansion they are currently working on!

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The queue line looked so cool, but there’s no way I’d ever wait in line for an hour. I actually ended up winning, I believe that’s a first!

Next: More Hollywood Studios

This was an extremely early morning – we were getting up when a younger version of myself would have just been heading to bed…But I was okay with it – this was our entire reason for this trip! It was 10k day!

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Luke woke up around 2:45am so he could eat his yogurt parfait and cereal he had picked up the night before, and start getting himself hydrated. I heard him get up, but I refused to open my eyes and swing my legs over the side of the bed until 3:30. I quickly brushed my teeth, threw my hair up into a messy ponytail and we left the room about 15 minutes later. When we got to the front of the hotel where bus-pick up was, there was already a bus for the race sitting there waiting so we walked directly on (seriously, Disney transport had been so good to us so far on this trip!). It was a short drive to the parking lot at Epcot, and then we got into the line for people carrying bags. It moved really quickly, and it did not take us long before we were in the main area for the race. There were so many people! While we walked around a bit, it started raining – good thing I was wearing my rain coat! Around 5am Luke had to head to the starting corrals, so I gave him a hug, wished him good luck and told him to not worry about his time and just enjoy every minute of the race! I went around to the spectator viewing area to watch the start of the race.

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At exactly 5:25am, the first countdown was held and the wheelchair athletes were off! At 5:30 the actual competitive athletes (Corral A) took off. Each 10 minutes, another group had their chance to leave the start gate and set out on their 10km, and with each group there were fireworks set off.

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Eventually, Group D was led into the starting corral!

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I was texting Luke, and let him know where I was so he could wave to me as he went by to start his race After I watched him go through the start gate, I made my way over to the finish line. I knew he’d be at least an hour and a half, since he did want to stop and meet a few characters (because seriously, where else can he do that during a race?!). It was raining this entire time, and it was kind of cold but luckily I had dressed in layers. I found a spot to sit on the grandstands beside the finish line, set Luke’s sweater down so I could keep my bum dry haha, and made myself comfortable. I did have a great view of this:

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Luke’s group started the race at 6am, and it rained until a little after 7:30 or so. I actually got to sit there and watch the sunrise around Spaceship Earth – so cool!

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I had taken my bookbag with me, I was planning on using the time to write down my notes of everything that we did the day before in the new travel journal my mom had bought me for Christmas but the rain put a damper on that. I was not bored at all though, it was a ton of fun to just people watch! Some of the costumes were phenomenal! People put so much effort into their outfits, and they all looked great! Some people just have so much creativity! Luke was texting me every so often, and stopping to update his Facebook to let our families and friends know how he was doing with pictures like this one:

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Just past the 4 mile marker, he texted to say he was going to stop to meet his first character – Remy from Ratatouille! About 10 minutes later, I had this picture sent to me:

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So cute! I love how happy Luke looks in this picture!

Around the 5 mile mark, Luke texted me again to say he was stopping for another character picture – this time with Mike and Sulley dressed in Monsters University gear.

It stopped raining right before this. I also knew that Luke was getting close to the end of the race, so I had my camera out and ready to take pictures of him on the last stretch of his first Disney 10km.

After crossing the finish line, Luke received his medal, a mylar blanket, a box full of food and a bottle of water and a bottle of Powerade. After this he exited the runner’s area, so I was finally able to see him and congratulate him on completing his first run in another country. He asked me to take his picture with his medal so he could post it on his facebook for his family to see.

After this, we headed to the buses to go back to our hotel. There happened to be one there waiting – once again zero wait time! The bus was fairly full and we weren’t able to get seats together, but it wasn’t a very far drive to All Star Music so we didn’t mind. We were back to our hotel in about 10-15 minutes. Once we got to our room, I peeled off my soaking wet clothes and put on warm clothes, then climbed under the blankets to warm up. Luke went for a shower. We ate a few snacks, including opening up Luke’s goodie box from the race – which included a banana, an energy bar, corn chips and cheese dip, cookies, etc.

Next: Hollywood Studios

I still was not feeling good, and had to make yet another bathroom break shortly after we left the restaurant. We decided to get in line to go see Festival of the Lion King, but before the doors even opened I decided I couldn’t do it, and I was full-out sick. After yet another trip the bathroom, I sadly had to call and cancel our supper reservation for the night – at 1900 Park Fare I was so excited about going to see the Grand Floridian, and now there was no way we could make it work into our schedule – I was really sad, but I know my body well enough to know it was not an option for tonight. At that point, we decided to call it a day and just go back to our hotel room – it was only about 2:30.

On our way out, we stopped to take a few pictures of these guys:

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I also stopped to snap a few pics of the tree just outside the park before we boarded our bus.

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Day Three – Thursday, January 7, 2016 – Part One

We woke up around 8am (I know, I know, it’s not a true Disney trip unless you’re at the parks at rope drop, but I just like sleep way too much). After getting dressed, we headed straight to the buses. We were heading to Animal Kingdom! We had to wait less than 5 minutes for a bus to show up, and then we were on our way! I was really excited about this park, I love animals (which you might have figured out since Luke and I have 11 pets haha). The bus ride to Animal Kingdom from the All-Star resorts is so short!

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We actually had trouble getting into the park, my thumbprint wouldn’t work. They needed to call over a supervisor, who had to reset it and then take my picture on her iPad to make sure I wasn’t just passing off my MagicBand to someone else. I didn’t mind that, I completely understand them taking those steps to ensure everyone is honest. Luckily, I had no more issues the rest of our trip, but I did need to have my fingerprint thing reset at Universal every time I entered. I guess I have weird thumbs haha.

After getting through, we set off into the park. That first view of the Tree of Life is almost breath-taking! I love how the parks were designed to play with your perspectives – the road which slants down towards towards the Tree, which is set up on a slightly higher piece of ground makes the entire thing appear so much larger than it actually is. The castle in Magic Kingdom does the same thing. (Yes, I notice things like that, it’s my actual job to pay attention to small details haha). Anyways, enough of my jabbering, here’s a picture of the tree:

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I really wanted to stop for Photopass pictures with the tree in the background, but we were running out of time on our first Fastpass of the morning, so we just had time to stop and snap the picture above before hurrying over to the Safari. We made it there with a few minutes to spare, but I was just happy we had made it! It took us about 10-15 minutes to get through the Fastpass line before we were boarding a truck. I loved this – and we saw so many animals since it was still early in the morning, and it was a little cool out. Some of the animals were really close to us! Here are some of my favourite pictures I took, starting with a sweet photobomb of our selfie:

After our safari was over, we were already in the window for our second Fastpass, which of course was on the other side of the park… So, off we went to Dinoland! We entered the fastpass line for Dinosaur, and only waited about 10 minutes before we were time traveling back in time. This ride reminded me a lot of the Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland, it uses the same technology for the ride vehicles. But, there really is no comparing the two – Indy wins hands down. I kind of feel like Disney cheaped out when making Dinosaur, just making a lot of it dark. With Indiana Jones, there is so much detail put into the entire ride, and everytime I go on it I notice more. Don’t get me wrong, Dinosaur was still fun though!

Here’s our ride photo (we’re in the bottom left hand corner, I’m holding on to my headband):

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After re-entering 2016, we still had time before our next Fastpass. We saw that Primeval Whirl only had a 20 minute standby time, so we jumped into line for that. The posted wait time was pretty much exact, and 20 minutes later we were getting onto the ride where I snapped these pictures:

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The ride itself was a crazy-mouse style roller coaster, but the cars actually spin a bit. I’m not a huge fan of this type of ride, but this was one of the better ones I’ve ever been on. By the time we exited the ride, it was within our window for our third (and final) Fastpass of the day. But first, let me backtrack a bit.

As we were walking over to DinoLand, I wasn’t feeling 100% and stopped to use the bathroom before we went on the ride. Before getting in line for Primeval Whirl, I went to the bathroom again. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in February 2013, so I’ve had this for a few years now. It sucks, but I’m determined to not let this disease dictate my life. A lot of people are affected way worse than I am – I travel a few times per year, I go to sports events, concerts, festivals, etc and I’ve continued working full time.

Anyways, we were off to Expedition Everest! I absolutely loved this ride! I wasn’t feeling great, but I was still able to really enjoy our search for the Yedi. I also love our ride picture from this:

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Yes, Luke was playing the air drums.

When we got off, we decided to head back to Africa. We were still about 45 minutes away from our reservation time at Tusker House, but I wasn’t feeling good and was not up to going on another ride at that moment. We tried to find the Fastpass Kiosk that was shown on the map we had grabbed as we entered the park, but we kept walking past where it should have been and could not find it. I was feeling worse and worse, and knew I needed to get food and water into my body ASAP. We were still half an hour away from our lunch reservation time, but we went to check in at Tusker House anyways and ask if we could get in early. Luckily it was not a problem, and 5 minutes later we were led to our table. My review of our meal can be found here.

Next: An Early End to the Day

We had to hurry after leaving Pirates in order to make it to our supper reservation on time. I had somehow managed to find a reservation for Be Our Guest, I was excited! My review can be found here.

After eating, you can stop to meet the Beast in his study on your way out. The Beast noticed my birthday pin, and tried to ask me how old I was, except he kept throwing his hands up in the air and Luke and I thought he was trying to “raise the roof”, so we joined in. He thought we were crazy…

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The cast member standing by started laughing, and explained the Beast was trying to ask “how many” while pointing to me birthday pin. We all had a good laugh about that, and then ended up getting these pictures:

By the time we left the restaurant, it was already after 8. We had heard the fireworks going off while we were eating our dessert, so that threw a wrench in my plans to see the MK fireworks that night. Spoiler alert – we actually didn’t end up seeing them at any point during our vacation, so I guess that’ll need to become a priority for when we go back At some point while we were at supper, it had rained which cleared the park out a bit. The park was open until 9 that night, but there were extra magic hours until 11pm and we planned on taking advantage of that!

Over the next two hours, we managed to get so many rides in, all with minimal wait times. Of course we went to the Haunted Mansion (which we both LOVE!), Stitch’s Escape (which I thought had so much potential, but fell so flat), Big Thunder Mountain (one of my favourite Disney rides!), Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin (which I lost terribly at). Here’s our picture from that one, we were taking our mission of defeating Emperor Zurg very seriously…

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I hate to do it again with comparing the parks, but the Buzz Lightyear ride is so much better at Disneyland! It’s so much easier to shoot accurately when you can lift the gun up.

We finished our night off at the Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor, which I actually enjoyed. It’s super lame humour, but I laughed like an idiot most of the way through. As we were leaving the park for the night, I stopped to snap these pictures:

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There was a line of Photopass photographers extending down Main Street away from the castle, so we walked until we saw one with a short line before stopping for a bunch of these pictures:

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As we were walking down Main Street, we heard music and actually got to see Tink fly over the castle to signal the park was closed for the night. When we got to our bus stop, we had to wait an agonizing 3 minutes for a bus to show up! Haha, I was so impressed by the Disney transportation service! After ~20-25 minutes, we were back at All Star Music and headed straight to bed (it was midnight by this point…). We needed to get some sleep, I had another busy day planned for us tomorrow (although the day had other plans for us…)

Next: Animal Kingdom

After riding Space Mountain, we decided to head to Fantasyland. Mad Tea Party had a really short lineup, the sign said the queue was 15 minutes but it was actually only about 5 minutes.

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As we were exiting the ride, Pooh and Tigger walked past us, so we decided to follow them to their meet and greet area. There were only a few people in line already, and I love those characters so we hopped in line for our first character meet of our trip!

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After meeting Pooh and Tigger, it was time for our third fastpass of the day – Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. It was a cute ride for sure, but way too quick and I can’t imagine waiting in line for over an hour for it. I also realized way too late that I didn’t get my on-ride picture and video

Since we had now used up our three pre-selected Fastpasses, we headed to a kiosk to pick out a 4th one. We ended up in line behind people who were completely clueless, and had no idea what they were doing or what they wanted to select. The Cast Member was very patient, but you could tell they were getting a little frustrated too, since the people were looking at their phone, and would say they wanted a fastpass for a ride that wasn’t even in Magic Kingdom. Eventually we made it to the front and selected a 4th fastpass for Pirates of the Caribbean.

We checked wait times on the Disney app, and decided to head to Ariel’s Undersea Adventure. The wait time said 25 minutes, and it was pretty much exact.

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The ride itself is basically the exact same as the one at Disney California Adventure, but the exterior is really impressive at WDW. I loved how it looked like you were entering a cave while waiting in the queue line. I also apologize for continuously comparing the rides in Florida and California, but I had been to Disneyland first..

We walked over to the Storybook Circus area to check on the wait for Dumbo – only 15 minutes so into another line we get!

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From there, we hopped on the Railroad – with zero wait time. We rode it all the way around to Frontierland. We still had time to kill before our FP+ window opened for POTC, so off to the Enchanted Tiki Room! We didn’t have time to check it out when we were in California (either time as it so happens). We got into line and as we walked through the queue line the doors opened up – perfect timing once again! I have to say – seeing that once is enough. Our FP window was open by the time we left the Tiki Room; in less than 5 minutes we were on a boat off to see some Pirates. Once again, another ride which is way better at Disneyland. The ride ended, and Luke and I just looked at each other and said “that was it?!”. It’s way too short at WDW.

When we checked the time, we realized we needed to hurry to get to our supper reservation – which was of course on the other side of the park…

Next: More MK

Day Two – Wednesday, January 6, 2016 – Part Two

After dropping off our goodies from the race Expo, it was time to head to our first park of the trip! We headed out to the front of our hotel and had to wait….. one minute until the bus was pulling up. We were killing it at Disney transportation so far!

After a bus ride which took around 25 minutes, we were pulling up to Magic Kingdom! We had picked this to be our park of the day based on our supper reservation, and it just seemed like the perfect one to start with! And the Christmas decorations were still up, which I didn’t think they would be so I was excited about that!

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As soon as I entered the park, I stopped to get a birthday pin (my birthday was the following Wednesday, so I figured it was ok to wear one since it was within a week). As soon as we got to Main Street the Move It! Shake It! Dance & Play It! Parade was starting, so of course we stopped to watch our first WDW parade.

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While watching the parade I actually got a little choked up, after months of planning and reading trip reports on the disboards, I was finally standing in Magic Kingdom! The parade itself was nothing special, but it was cute and had some great characters. After the parade, we walked down Main Street (where I was again a little choked up at the sight of Cinderella’s castle – it’s so big and beautiful!). We didn’t really have a ton of time to admire it though, we had to get to our first Fastpass selection of our trip! FP+ #1 – Splash Mountain! Once we hopped into the fastpass line, it took about 5 minutes before we were boarding our log. I also prefer the logs here compared to Disneyland – sitting side by side is so much better! It’s so easy to plan ahead for a funny photo on this ride, so here’s our first ride photo of the trip:

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By the time we finished our visit with Briar Rabbit and Briar Bear, it was after 1pm and I hadn’t ate since breakfast, but we were both getting hungry. We knew we wanted a quick service option, since all of our table service credits on our dining plan were spoken for with reservations, so we decided on Peco’s Bills! We figured we’d be fine splitting an entree, since we did have a supper reservation for later and we knew we’d have a fairly large meal there. Our review of Peco’s Bills can be found here.

We finished up and went to the Christmas store in Magic Kingdom. I’ve been trying to buy a new ornament on every trip we go on, so eventually I can decorate an entire Christmas tree just with ornaments that remind us of trips we’ve taken together. I decided on this one, I knew I wanted something that had the year on it, and also said Walt Disney World (which this one has on the side).

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I was scared of breaking it if I had to carry it around with me all day, so I had it shipped to our hotel for pickup the next day – I love this feature of staying on site!

After this, it was time to head to our second fastpass of the day (and our second ride of the trip!) We basically had to walk from one side of the park to the other, but that was okay, we had lots of time. Luke snapped this picture of me in front of the castle while we were walking to Tomorrowland: (and yes, I had a different Disney outfit to wear every single day we were there haha)

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We stopped for our first Photopass pictures of our trip along the way too! We were both really hesitant about buying Photopass before we left, especially with our terrible exchange rate, but my mom decided to give us money towards the cost as part of my birthday present. So, I prepaid the $150US for it – which ended up being $211 Canadian dollars, ugh.

Anyways, I was determined to make it worth it! So here’s a few from our first stop at a photographer:

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From there, we headed over to Space Mountain. The Fastpass line was huge, and I was a little worried we might be in for a long wait time, but it ended up moving pretty well, and we were at the front of the line in about 20 minutes. The star effect isn’t nearly as good as it is at Disneyland, and I wasn’t a huge fan of the single file seats. Also, 7 weeks after this, we were at Disneyland again and got to experience the Hyperspace Mountain overlay – and nothing can compare to that. It was phenomenal! I still enjoyed Space Mountain at WDW, but I definitely enjoy this ride more at Disneyland. That being said, here is our on-ride photo (our Space Mountain pics were among my least favourite of the trip sadly):

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