Walt Disney World 2022 - Day 1: Travel and Paddlefish

Recently returned from a trip to Universal Studios and Walt Disney World in Florida where we were introduced to Hurricane Nicole.  After almost 3 years of no travel or only local travel, we mounted up and rode east when my brother invited the whole gang for a family vacation.  It was hard getting back in the saddle after so much time away, but we returned home sapped but satisfied.

On our travel day we after arriving and getting settled in the room (no need to check in at the lobby thanks to the My Disney Experience app and our old MagicBands!), we regrouped and all took the boat to Disney Springs for dinner at Paddlefish.

Our first trip to the airport since February 2020 - just before lockdown

Our chariot awaits.  Oh right, I was using horse metaphors earlier.
Our noble steed awaits!

The lobby at the New Orleans/Mardi Gras themed Port Orleans: French Quarter resort

Disney World Thanksgiving Camping Trip - Day 5: Epcot

Epcot was on our agenda for this day, and we got to spend another great day with our friend Jackie who lives near the park.

Disney World Thanksgiving Camping Trip - Day 4: Animal Kingdom

We had some rain overnight, but not too bad.  On this day we went to the Animal Kingdom park.  Also, I stopped taking notes the day before, so we're on our own now.  Let's see...

Disney World Thanksgiving Camping Trip - Day 3: Magic Kingdom

Today's park was the Magic Kingdom.

Our tent in the daylight.  I'll have more to say about camping this time around later.

Disney World Thanksgiving Camping Trip - Days 1 & 2: Road Trip

I suppose it's finally time to begin posts about our Thanksgiving trip to Disney World.  I suppose I've been delaying because it wasn't a very good trip, and in hindsight it would have been better to stay at home and spend Thanksgiving with our families.  I'm not advocating against traveling during a holiday, but this particular excursion was not worth it.  In the end, I'm glad we went the year prior on a camping practice run as it was a much better experience.

Our plan this time was to spend two days on the road going to Florida, stopping at a hotel in Pensacola for the night, then six days of camping at Disney World.  That would be followed by three days driving home with overnight camping at the same campgrounds from the previous year:  O'Leno State Park in Florida and Buccaneer State Park in Mississippi.

Apologies in advance for any typos - I'm competing with Selkie, one of our cats, for control of the keyboard.  That cat, there:

An older photo of the perpetrator taken after a hard day's work of stomping all over the keyboard

Now, on with the show.

Coming Soon

Just returned from a Thanksgiving! camping trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando.  I'll finish up (finally) the Big Bend posts then move on to Disney.  Stay tuned.

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 9

This was it - our last day on the road.  We got up early, shook off the cold, packed up camp and drove about 10hrs (with stops) to get home.

Blue skies are calling me home

"North 49, Mile 125"
Near Natchitoches (pronounced Nack-a-tish), Louisiana

We had a really great trip and I'm glad we got to go with Mom.  I think my biggest takeaways from this trip were:

• Disney World has become much more crowded.  It's true what they say that there really isn't a slow time or season anymore.  Just plan the best you can and be prepared to make the most of it.
• Camping and going to the park wasn't a problem at all.  True you can't really head back to your tent in the middle of the hot day to rest/take a nap, but if needed you could easily camp out in a comfy chair in the lobby of any of the myriad of hotels around the property.
• The hardest part of the trip, and the hardest to adjust to, was the temperature swing from the traveling phase of the trip to the destination portion.  Planning to camp in 80-90° weather is one thing, planning to camp in 30-40°, then 80-90°, then 30-40° again weather is something else.  It didn't help that our travel days ended up being colder than originally forecast, and our Disney days were hotter than they were predicted to be.  I suppose if we had an unlimited amount of space and could fully pack for both extremes it would have been more comfortable, but as it was we did the best with what we had.
• And that's it.  You can only learn 3 lessons from any given situation - additional enlightenment would just be ridiculous.

I'll circle back around to compare/contrast once we take the next trip with our friends.  Hope you enjoyed.

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 8

The next morning we packed up and stopped at a McDonald's for breakfast.  Lunch was also eaten on the road and eight-some-odd hours later we arrived back at Buccaneer State Park in Mississippi.

Camp set-up didn't take too long, then around 5:00pm we headed into Bay St. Louis to eat once more at Cuz's Old Town Oyster Bar & Grill.  Delicious again.

Back at camp we cleaned up and settled in for a last brisk (but thankfully not as bad as on the way to Disney) night.  As we were getting ready to bed down there was a wicked loud drunken verbal fight happening a few campsites down that lasted for over an hour until someone finally came to quiet them down.  Or they wore themselves out - not sure which.

Tents are pitched

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 7

This was our last day at Disney World.  We got up, broke camp, cleaned up, and drove to the Reception Outpost to check out.  At checkout we confirmed that we could leave the car in the campground's overflow parking lot, which we did.  Then we caught the bus to Animal Kingdom.

We originally planned to spend a half-day this day at Hollywood Studios to bookend the half-day we had there when we arrived, but the night before we decided to go to Animal Kingdom again instead because we enjoy that park more (particularly the walk-through Maharajah Jungle Trek).  So off we went.

Tree of Life

Dinosaur, my favorite

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 6

Picking up where I left off...

We spent the next day at the Magic Kingdom where we had FastPasses for Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and Peter Pan, in that order.

It's easiest (in my opinion) to take the boat from campground to the Magic Kingdom, plus the scenery beats a bus ride.  We traveled to the campground boat launch and waited about 15-20 minutes for a boat.

Campground Christmas tree

The pier

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 5

Animal Kingdom was next on our agenda, and this would be our first time to experience Pandora - The World of Avatar.

Wildlife in the campground

Cardinal

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Day 4

The next day we went to Epcot and met our friend Jackie who lives in Orlando.  She's always gracious and spends a day with us when we come to Disney - good times!

This was the last day of the 2018 Food & Wine Festival so we spent the day eating around Epcot.  A lot.  We had done this a few years back at Disneyland's California Adventure and had a good time, so we were looking forward to it here at Disney World.

I can't find my festival passport at the moment, but even without it I can remember 2 clear standouts:  The Chateau Des Charmes Vidal Icewine, Niagara-on-the-Lake from the Canada pavilion (good), and the Croissant Doughnut with Chocolate and Marshmallows (bad).  To be fair the doughnut was probably good when it was fresh, but it was so, so stale when we ate it.

Not a lot of pictures from this day:

Todd waiting for the bus at the campgrounds

The Epcot entry plaza.  This is currently under renovation and the giant "Leave a Legacy" monoliths are being moved to open up the space more.

Camping At Disney World 2018 - Days 1-3

How this trip came about:

1. We agreed to go to Walt Disney World in 2019 with our friends Holly and Brian and their three kids (see posts from our 2013 Disney trip with them starting here).
2. Todd and I have had a lot a fun camping recently and decided that the two of us would camp at Disney World and on the drives there and back.
3. Being not sure what camping and theme-parking at the same time would be like, and not wanting to combine that first-time experience/stress with traveling with another family, we decided to do a test run in 2018.
4. We invited my mom to come along.

On our first day we got an early start for our 8.5 hour drive and picked Mom up at her house.  We already had most of her gear and had packed it in the car the night before.  We got on the road and had an pleasant enough / uneventful drive to Buccaneer State Park in Waveland, Mississippi - our camp site for the night.

A drizzle around Baton Rouge

Buccaneer State Park sits on the Gulf of Mexico.  Almost completely destroyed by hurricane Katrina in 2005, it underwent an extensive 8-year renovation.

Disney Trip 2013 - Epilogue Part 3: Orlando Air Quality

Nah, I'm just kidding.  That last one was my last post about the trip - hope you enjoyed it.

I'm ready to write about something else now.  Who wants to finance the next vacation?   :)

Disney Trip 2013 - Epilogue Part 2: My Disney Experience

Along with the Disney Magic Bands I wrote about in the last post, we also used the My Disney Experience website and app before and during our trip.

The website is a free to use portal where you can link and view your reservations, tickets, make fast pass selections, create to-do or wish lists, connect with friends who will be traveling with you, make dining reservations, and discover everything there is to do at the parks and resorts.

The My Disney Experience website

Disney Trip 2013 - Epilogue Part 1: Magic Bands

So, you may have seen in earlier posts these colorful bracelets that we and other people are wearing:

Blue for Brett

Green for Todd

These are Magic Bands.  They're currently being tested by Disney for some resort guests.  There's an RFID chip inside that uniquely identifies each Magic Band.  They are used for:  hotel room keys, tickets to enter the park, fast passes, purchases (if you choose), reservations, etc.  They're also used in conjunction with photos taken in the parks by Disney photographers, which are everywhere.  Any time you get your picture made, say in front of the castle, at a meet and greet with a character, in front of the giant sorcerer's hat at Hollywood Studios, etc., you simply tap your Magic Band to the photographer's pad afterward.  Then your done.  During your trip, or when you get home after your vacation you can go online and review all the photos that were taken, and pay to download only the ones you want.

In addition, many gift shops at Walt Disney World sell optional accessories in several flavors:  Magic Band covers (sleeves which envelop the entire band to give it a different appearance), "sliders" that are like big character charms that fit over the band and frame the Mickey on top, and "MagicBandits" which are small character charms that plug into the empty holes on the wristband.

I was going to make this a longer post, but just watch the video at the end - it shows all the Magic Band features.

Disney Trip 2013 - Day 8

Today's our last day - our flight leaves at 7:25pm tonight.  Woke up exhausted - lack of sleep the night before last and our very late night combined with the long day yesterday has taken it's toll.  I'm pretty zombie-ish and focus on getting packed and ready to go.  I'm accused of ruining our last vacation morning.  Words are exchanged.  It takes us a few minutes to work through it, then we're good again.

We head downstairs to the airline check-in stand beside the hotel entrance.  We check our luggage and wait for the bus to Animal Kingdom.  One of Todd's favorite rides, Kali River Rapids, was closed for refurbishment this week.  A plus of having to shift the trip by two days is that now it's open and we can ride it before we leave - I got us fast passes a couple of days before using the My Disney Experience app (still more on that later).  As an added bonus, Jackie is going to meet us again today to spend a little time before we have to leave.

Disney Trip 2013 - Day 7

Saturday, December 14th.  Today is our only full day at Disney's Hollywood Studios, so let's get going!

The park opened at 9am to the public, but today was an Extra Magic Hours day for resort guests.  That meant that people staying on-property in a Disney hotel could get into the park an hour early at 8am.  We decided to take full advantage of this and slept in.

We did manage to get up and get going early enough to walk past all the people waiting at the gate and make it inside the park by 8:45, which was more than enough time to ride Rock 'n' Roller coaster and get in a 5 minute line for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.  Check, and check.

Rock 'n' Roller Coaster is such a sweet ride.  Launching 0-60mph in under 3 seconds, zipping through 3 inversions in the dark, flying by and through lit up neon signs, all while Aerosmith cranks out of speakers by your headrest - not to mention how smooth the ride is - this is a perfect roller coaster!  I could ride it over and over again if the line wasn't long.

Disney Trip 2013 - Day 6

Friday the 13th and we're off to the Magic Kingdom.  Holly and Brian got all of us nice matching t-shirts, with each of us being one of the seven dwarfs.  I'm Dopey and Todd's Grumpy.  Hmm...is there a message there?   :o)

In the back row:  Bashful, Dopey, Grumpy, Doc, Sleepy.  In the front:  Happy, Sneezy.  Photo courtesy of Sleepy, I mean Brian.

Disney Trip 2013 - Day 4

An early start today - going to the Magic Kingdom.  Jacob has an appointment to transform into a pirate and join the Pirate's League, and Katie is going to get princessified at the Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boutique.

We got there early enough to watch the opening ceremony at the front of the park