Although the main reason we went to Florida was to go to Disney World, we also went to Universal Studios Orlando, Orlando Vineland Premium Outlets, and spent a lot of time at our hotel. My family and I stayed at Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, which is a resort, so they have a pool, a spa, two restaurants, and a bunch more there. I really like it there. They have a lot of fun things to do as well as a bunch of convenient things, like shuttles to take you to the mall or any of the nearby theme parks.
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| Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort |
There was lots to do every day I was there, even when it was raining or pouring. So to make it easier, I'm going to separate this post into two parts by theme parks/places and mention the highlights, pros, cons, tips, and whatever else I may have to say.
Disney World
Epcot
This Disney World park is perhaps best known as the international park. Of course, my family and I had to "go around the world" and see all of the countries. Considering the only two countries I've ever been to are the U.S. and Canada, it was cool to see what other countries are like, even if I wasn't really there. And since this park is known for being able to go around the world at the World Showcase, there aren't too many thrilling rides, so it was mostly just walking around and seeing the world, which is still fun!
Rides/attractions we went on/to:
- American Heritage Gallery: This is part of the U.S. segment of the world in Epcot. It's like a mini museum. There's a show about the history of America that's shown inside. I don't think it's anything special.
- Disney Animals: This is connected to the Nemo ride, and it's basically a small aquarium. There are sea turtles, a bunch of fish, sting rays, dolphins, and even sharks there! It's pretty cool to see. Depending on what time you go, I believe there are some informative demonstrations or something. We were there relatively late in the day, so all we did was watch the animals swim around.
- Gran Fiesta Tour Featuring the Three Caballeros: Although it's a little kid ride and slow, this ride is still enjoyable and it's nice to go on to relax. It's a boat ride accompanied with music and is located in Epcot's Mexico. There are little videos and animations all over the wall of the boat ride that go along with the music, and you're trying to find Donald Duck.
- Innoventions: There wasn't anything here that interested us really. It was mostly kids doing interactive things. We just went in to see what it was.
- Mexico Folk Art Gallery: It's exactly what it says it is. There's a cool mini Mayan temple replica or something inside, along with other cool stuff.
- The Seas with Nemo & Friends: As adapted from the movie Finding Nemo, this slow-moving ride is about finding Nemo! It's not exactly like the movie though. Yes, the characters are trying to find Nemo, but it's more like Nemo is just hiding from them and messing with them. Nemo didn't get lost. This is pretty much a little kid ride, but it's still enjoyable, and the wait wasn't long, so if you want to get away from the heat and sit down somewhere, this isn't a bad ride to go on.
- Soarin': I believe this is the same ride that Disneyland has at California Adventure. This is probably one of the rides at Epcot that isn't for little kids. It's a motion simulator ride where your feet are dangling and it feels like you're flying over a bunch of places, like the beach and ocean or Disneyland!
- Spaceship Earth: This one was pretty cool. It was the first ride we went on, and it took you through a journey of how the Earth came to be. It felt like you were in space, which was pretty cool!
- Test Track: This is probably as close to a roller coaster as it gets at Epcot. You get to design a car and test it out on the ride. It's fast and fun, and it starts indoors and goes outside. I imagine this is kind of what it feels like to be in a Fast and the Furious movie.
Dining: We ate at a restaurant in Japan, and it was alright, not too bad for non-American food at Disney. The place was called Katsura Grill. My mom was reading the menu out loud and said, "Chicken teriyaki with rice," to which my dad immediately replied, "Oh, I like that!" It was pretty funny. So we ate there, and it was pretty crowded. The seating was pretty cool, and it felt like what a Japanese restaurant would actually be like. It's a quick-service place, so you order your food at the counter and get it after a little wait, so it's not bad!
That's all the food we got there, so I can't comment on any other places, but there are a ton of restaurants to go to and try.
Entertainment: We didn't really see any shows or meet any characters, but we did get to see Chinese acrobats! When we passed China, it was just in time for their show. As a gymnastics fan, I like watching acrobatic movement, so when I saw there was going to be a performance, I told my family that I wanted to stop and watch. So we did. And I took a bunch of pictures.
It was entertaining, but I thought it would be more entertaining that it was, so I was a little disappointed. I thought they would be doing more difficult skills and stuff, so that's why. That's probably because I watch a lot of gymnastics and see difficult skills all the time. But it's still worth watching!
Magic Kingdom
If you've every been to Disneyland, then Magic Kingdom will seem pretty familiar. Magic Kingdom is basically the Disneyland of Disney World. It's got a castle, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, it's a small world, and the spinning teacups. But even if you've been to Disneyland, I still recommend going to Magic Kingdom. After all, they're not exactly the same.
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| Cinderella's castle at night during the Fourth of July |
Rides/attractions we went to/on:
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin: This is a little kid ride, but the guy who was setting up our FastPass recommended it, so we went. It's one of those rides where you get in and it just goes in a circle and goes up and down. Although it's for kids, it's still pretty fun, because you get to control how high or low your carpet goes and if it tilts up, down, left, or right. Plus, you can get sprayed by a camel with water. So it's nice on a hot day.
- Splash Mountain: I've wanted to go on Splash Mountain for years. Two years ago, when we went to Disneyland, I wouldn't shut up about it, and we didn't get to ride it. So I finally got to ride it and was a little disappointed. It wasn't what I expected. There's always such a long wait, and everyone always seems to want to go on it, so I thought it would be more fun. I thought it was more roller-coaster like with the speed and feel.
Besides the big 50-foot drop at the end of the ride, there's maybe one other significant drop. Other than that, it's a lot of sitting in the ride as it goes through water slowly and you hear some music that gets annoying after a while. Plus, my siblings and I got stuck while we were on it, so that wasn't fun, especially since we were stuck in a dark, boring part of the ride listening to the music that gets annoying. So if you want to go an exhilarating and fast water ride, Splash Mountain's not it. - Stitch's Great Escape: From the name of the ride, I thought we would be experiencing Stitch's escape from a spaceship or something. That didn't happen. You pretty much stand for a little bit listening to how their prison works and then sit down in what you think is a ride chair that's going to move or something. Instead, you just sit and watch Stitch pop up and hear him cause some shenanigans in complete darkness. That's all. I wouldn't recommend it.
- Swiss Family Treehouse: This isn't actually a ride; it's just a replica treehouse of the one in Swiss Family Robinson, which I've never seen. We only went inside because my mom wanted to go in.
If you hate stairs, then this probably isn't for you. There aren't that many stairs, in my opinion, but there are quite a few stairs. It's nothing too exciting, but it is kind of cool to see a big treehouse. Maybe it's more exciting if you've seen the movie? - Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover: I originally didn't want to go on this, because I thought it was just a train that went all over Tomorrowland, but I was mistaken. While it is a train that travels around Tomorrowland, it's faster than you think. It starts off slow but speeds up and gives you info about Tomorrowland attractions as you travel inside and around them. You also get good views of Space Mountain and Cinderella's castle from the ride. I recommend going on it at night!
- Under the Sea: Journey of The Little Mermaid: This is another one of the kiddie rides that our FastPass guy recommended, and it was alright. It's another one of those slow-moving rides that takes you through some Disney character's journey with music. I like the music from The Little Mermaid, so I liked that. Rides like these are good for people who don't like fast rides like roller-coasters.
- Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress: This is more of an informative ride than an entertainment/fun ride, but it's still pretty cool to see and go on. It is basically a bunch of seats that rotate around a theater, which I think it pretty cool. You see an animatronic family go through changes at the century goes by, like what appliances there are, what houses look like, and learn about advances in technology and its impact on a family.
- Walt Disney World Railroad: We took this from Frontierland to Fantasyland, and it was cool to see their portrayal of how Native Americans lived on that land before any of this came to be.
- Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin: This was probably one of my favorite, if not my favorite, rides at Disney. Though it looks like a kiddie ride, it's fun no matter how old you are. You act as a member of the Space Command and get to shoot Emperor Zurg and his people in this little vehicle that you can spin around. It's really fun to spin around really fast and try to shoot the bad guys. You even get points, so it can get competitive with the person you sit next to. Somehow, my dad got 56,600 points.
- The Hall of Presidents: This is like a show with video clips and animatronic presidents. Essentially, you learn about the major U.S. Presidents and what they did for this country.
Entertainment:
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| The Maleficent dragon during the parade |
- Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade: What's Disney without a parade? I recommend trying to see a parade if you go to Disney, whether it's Disney World or Disneyland, because they're fun to see and are full of music. Plus, this parade has a fire-breathing dragon, so that was pretty awesome.
- Celebrate America! A Fourth of July Concert in the Sky: I definitely recommend going to Magic Kingdom on the Fourth of July. Yes, it may be crowded, but the fireworks are worth it. They were awesome. They are literally all around you. It's 360-degrees, big, and loud. There were even Mickey Mouse, star, and heart fireworks! Plus, they played Disney music before the fireworks started, so I enjoyed listening to some High School Musical.
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| Mickey fireworks!!! |
Dining: If you want to eat at a table service restaurant and want to sit down and have a waiter come to you to get your food and whatnot, then I recommend you make a reservation the second you know where you want to eat. And do it as early as possible, because otherwise, you'll be waiting for hours. And that's why we ate at a quick service restaurant.
- Tomorrowland Terrace Restaurant: This place serves American food, and it was good. I had the chicken nuggets, which are really just mini chicken tenders, which was a plus, because that means you get more food than you thought! Also, it's got a nice view of Cinderella's castle.
- Auntie Gravity's Galactic Goodies: My siblings and I really wanted ice cream, so we went here. The ice cream was good. I had a chocolate and vanilla swirl sundae with hot fudge, and I had no complaints other than the fact that my chocolate ice cream was not swirled with my vanilla ice cream, which is a minor thing. (I just expected it to be since the menu said swirl.)
Hollywood Studios
This is probably the smallest of all of the parks at Disney World (even though I didn't even go to Animal Kingdom because my mom didn't want to), but it's still jam-packed with lots of fun! But if you want to go on a lot of rides, then this is not the place for you, since there aren't many.
Rides/attractions we went on/to:
- MuppetVision 3D: Although it say 3D, this is actually 4D. A few of the Muppets in the 3D video they show actually pop up and end up actually being in the theater. This was pretty funny, and the wait wasn't long at all.
- StarTours: This was the only actual ride that we went on at Hollywood Studios, and we actually rode it twice since the wait wasn't long later in the day even without a FastPass. My brother's a big fan of this sci-fi series, which is the main reason we went on it again. But the nice thing about riding this multiple times is that it's a motion simulator ride with a bunch of different possible scenarios to go through. So it's very likely that if you ride it more than once, the ride and experience will be somewhat different.
- Walt Disney: One Man's Dream: This was actually something we just went to because it started pouring and didn't want to be stuck in the rain. There's actually some cool stuff in here though. It's got a mini museum exhibit about Walt Disney that tells you about his life, and there are some actual artifacts from his life. Plus, there are mini models of parts of the Disney parks, like Belle's chateau in France, Disney Tokyo, and more. You have all that cool stuff to look at before the show/movie starts, which tells the story of his life and how his enterprise came to be.
Entertainment:
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| "Be Our Guest" during Beauty and the Beast - Live on Stage |
- Beauty and the Beast - Live on Stage: This show is essentially the movie squeezed into a musical that's around 30 minutes long, but most, if not all, of the songs are there. I liked it, even though Belle's dad is nowhere to be seen throughout the entire thing and lots of scenes were left out. But it only makes sense since the show isn't as long as the movie.
- For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-along Celebration: This is essentially a sing-along to the songs in the movie. The songs play on the screen as the historians of Arendelle tell us the story of their kingdom. It's fun to sing along to and to see Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff.
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| Anna and Elsa at the end of For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-along Celebration. |
- Frozen Fever: Hollywood Studios has showings of the Frozen short as part of the Frozen Summer Fun celebration. Even though my siblings and I have already seen the short, we decided to see it again because the wait was short and we had time to kill.
- Frozen Royal Welcome: This is also part of the Frozen Summer Fun celebration. This is a parade of the Frozen characters, including Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, and Olaf.
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| Queen Elsa during the parade. |
- Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show: This stunt show was full of cars drifting and jumping and some other vehicles, like motorcycles. They were showing us what it's like to film stunts including vehicles like those for movies. There was also fire, so it was definitely an action-packed, extreme stunt show like it said it would be.
- Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!: This stunt show replicated what it was like to film stunts for the Indiana Jones movies. I've never seen an Indiana Jones movie, so I didn't really know what to expect, but it was definitely cool and exciting. There was even some tumbling, so I enjoyed that part! Things also exploded in this one too, which was also entertaining.
Dining:
- Pizza Planet: The sit-down restaurants here also seemed to mostly require reservations or a super long wait, so we ended up eating at Pizza Planet! Yes, it is real! The place from Toy Story is a real restaurant! I always said there should be a Pizza Planet restaurant at Disney, but since I'd only been to Disneyland (where there isn't one), I didn't know that there was one at Disney World until we got there. I was really excited. The pizza was good, and there's even an arcade in the restaurant like in Toy Story!
- Oasis Canteen: My siblings and I decided that when we were at Disney World, we were going to eat two things (other than normal lunch): ice cream and funnel cake. This was the only place we saw selling funnel cake on our last day at Disney when were at Hollywood Studios, so that's why we went here. The funnel cake was awesome. It was topped with powdered sugar and vanilla soft-serve ice cream. It was mind of small considering I shared it with my mom, brother, and sister, and my mom offered to buy another one because she knew it was small, but I decided that I probably shouldn't eat so much funnel cake after all the junk food I'd been eating all vacation and summer long. I definitely recommend it though!
Downtown Disney
Downtown Disney is just like any other "downtown" part of a city. It's full of shops and restaurants. But there's also a bowling alley, a movie theater, and a Cirque du Soleil show!
I really wanted to go to the Cirque show, but it's expensive. I was hoping to at least be able to go into the Cirque gift shop, but that was closed. I guess it's only open around showtime.
Before going around everywhere, we decided to have some ice cream at Ghiradelli Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop. I've had Ghiradelli's chocolate before multiple times, but I hadn't tried their ice cream until this Florida trip. My sister and I shared the cookie bits sundae, and it was so good! It's two scoops of cookies and cream ice cream and one scoop of vanilla ice cream with chocolate chip cookie pieces, hot fudge, and whipped cream. It was most definitely the best ice cream sundae I've ever had. If you like cookies and ice cream, I definitely recommend getting it. It's pretty big though, so two or three should probably share it.
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| Ghiradelli cookie bits sundae |
There are a lot of stores in Downtown Disney, and of course, there are Disney stores, but my favorite stores were the ones that didn't strictly sell Disney stuff. I love the stores Tren-D and Curl by Sammy Duvall. They had a bunch of cute clothes that weren't Disney related, like stuff from the brands Roxy, Billabong, and other surf/skate brands. Curl is basically like a PacSun or Tilly's, but more surf/skate-centered. Tren-D had a few surf/skate brands, but only a few. It's mainly catered towards girls/juniors. In addition to cute clothes unrelated to Disney, they did have quite a few items with Minnie Mouse or other Disney characters on them.
So overall, Disney World was an enjoyable experience. I'm pretty pleased with my first time there, but I still would like to go to Animal Kingdom someday. And here's a general tip: once you know when you're definitely going to Disney World, reserve your FastPass immediately and make restaurant reservations as soon as possible.
Stay tuned for part two of my "Fun in Florida" blog series, where I talk about my time at Universal Studios, the nearby outlet mall, and maybe the awesome resort we stayed at.
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