Orlando, Ho!

We just got back from an epic family vacation. We spent five(ish) days in Orlando and then hopped on a cruise ship for five more days. Part of the trip was just our family, and part of it included my parents and brothers (and their families). I’ll probably have a few vacation posts to share over the next lil while, so bear with me. These posts are a treasure for me personally to look back on, and I’m always glad to have written them. Feel free to read them or skip them. 

Orlando Bound

We began our trip early on a Wednesday morning. We left from the Salt Lake airport where Eva’s bag was confiscated due to her sneaking in a bottle of body spray despite us telling her not to add anything to her bag. They had to take her body spray away, and she was very upset! 

Luckily we ran into Lupe - our friend and neighbor who also happens to be Eva’s primary (Sunday school) teacher and a “red coat” for Delta. She brought Eva a bag of pity treats to make her happy. 

Fun fact: Lupe is my bestie Christie’s sister, so I had to send Christie a selfie proclaiming that we were hanging out without her!

We also met up with my friend Laurel who was headed to Tampa for work. By sheer coincidence, our flights left within 20 minutes of each other on the same day from the same terminal. 

All went well with our flight, and we arrived in Orlando without incident. We picked up our rental van, and we got a good laugh at the rows and rows of vans to choose from that were our exact van from home! 

Orlando airport 

Tram ride at the Orlando airport

White Chrysler Pacifica, anyone?

We found a silver one tucked away, so we opted for that one to have some variety in our journey, then we drove to Cici’s pizza. Nicky and Scotty are obsessed with Cici’s, and they’d been looking forward to it for months. We don’t have them in Utah. 

Nicky at Cici’s

The crust plate

(I normally love the crust, but Cici’s crust is definitely reject crust)

After Cici’s we went to Disney Springs and let the kids pick some merch from the World of Disney store, and we walked around for a while and listened to some live music. 

Funhouse mirror in the candy shop

Disney Springs

We checked into our Vrbo and had two Walmart deliveries (I did a pre-order before we left on vacation, and then found myself needing some more snacks, so I did a 90 minutes express order, and I am simply NOT hating Walmart+ at all). 

Our house had a pool and hot tub so the kids played in the water til late at night. 

Magic Kingdom

The main purpose of our trip was a cruise, but we figured we couldn’t go to Orlando and not hit Disney World! On Thursday we went to Magic Kingdom. 

The crowds were tolerable. The weather was great (it was nice to go to Florida in January - I was actually able to do my hair some days). 

All aboard the People Mover

Best table in Gaston’s tavern

In front of the Beast’s castle

Rapunzel’s tower

We had a couple of new experiences at Magic Kingdom. We got to ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure for the first time:

Tiana’s Bayou Adventure

We rode Tron for the first (and second) time:

I’ve never seen Tron, but the ride was really cool. 

We also had a meal at Liberty Hall Tavern. It was all-you-can-eat table service. They had a green salad that tasted so amazing (you know when your body is like GIVE ME A VEGETABLE! And then you do? And your body is like THANK YOU? That’s how the salad was). There was also pot roast, pork, turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, and bread. Plus dessert, of course. And whatever you want more of, they will bring you!

It was good - and perfect for our family as we are not “character” people. Even our kids have never cared for interacting with Disney characters much, so “character dining” is actually really awkward for us. This was a nice substitute. 

Overall we had a great day at Magic Kingdom, and we were there from open to close. 

EPCOT

On Friday we went to EPCOT. It was busier than Magic Kingdom and we had warmer weather, but it was still tolerable since we had some Lightning Lane reservations (insert rant about how much I hate LL and what it has done to the Disney experience). 

Some highlights: 

We rode Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind twice (we had to pay for one ride and do virtual queue for the other - this ride is so high in demand that there is no standby line). It is such a good ride. I get weepy on it because it’s that good.

At EPCOT we ate a ton. Here is Scotty going over his intricate food plan in the line for Frozen:

We ate and ate and ate…

Tacos

Shakes

Pastries

Different tacos and different pastries

Some kind of loaded burger and mega fries

Fish and chips

We also had crepes (they were gross) and breakfast croissants. Scotty was OUT. OF. CONTROL and wanted to taste all the things.

While we were waiting for our first round of tacos, Daisy got pooped on by a bird. She didn’t handle it well.

Daisy = not okay

We explored the new Moana walk-through exhibit. It was really cute.

At the end of the night we decided to ride Frozen one last time. Right before we got on the ride, an elderly woman got injured while trying to get out of her boat (we don’t actually know what happened, we just know she couldn’t get out of the boat), and they had to stop the ride and bring in EMTs. They tried a few different times in a few different ways to hoist her out without success. We watched all of this unfold for about half an hour before they evacuated the line queue. 

Front row seat to a medical evacuation

If we’d been in line five minutes sooner, we could have been stuck on the ride listening to the same ten seconds of “Let it Go” on repeat without any idea what was going on outside! Imagine!

Our Disney World section of the trip was short and sweet, but we loved it! We opted for just two days and two parks so we could do some other things in Orlando. 

To be continued…