January 2018 Disney Trip Report Day One
My mom and I just returned from our annual trip to Disney World to celebrate my birthday. This was the last of my birthday celebrations for the year, so it was a great one to end on! I already wrote all about the planning that was involved, so now I want to fill you in on how the trip actually went! Below is day one - Friday, January 26th!
I was up bright and early at 3 am to get ready for our super early flight to Orlando. We made it to the airport around 4:10 am. Since it was so early, Brad and Melody didn't walk me into the airport. He was headed to Memphis to see his parents, so it was best she stayed asleep! We checked our luggage and made it through security by 4:30. We sat around and chatted while waiting to board. We were boarded by 5:15, and we landed in Atlanta around 7:15 (eastern).
We had breakfast at Boar's Head Cafe during our layover. We both had a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant and a coke. You could make it a combo by adding a pastry, but the sandwich was already enough food! It was the best of all the breakfasts that I have had at an airport.
We boarded our plane to Orlando around 8:50. It was a really rough landing in Orlando. They were unable to provide drink service to our portion of the plane due to time. So not having a coke to help settle my stomach made the landing much worse. It was exceptionally bumpy for around 15-20 minutes during decent. It felt worse than any ride at Disney World! But we finally landed around 10:10 safe and sound!
We made it to the Magical Express check in around 10:45 am. We easily checked in with both of our MagicBands then headed to our designated line. We waited around 15 minutes, then they started letting us board our bus.
After about 5 minutes on the bus, we were off to Disney World.
We stopped at Old Key West, Saratoga Springs, and next up was our resort, French Quarter. They stopped at Riverside after dropping us off too. We made it to our resort around 11:45 am.
I received a text and email from Disney right after we landed in Orlando that our room was not ready yet.
Since we still didn't have a notification of our room being ready, we decided to eat lunch. We looked over the lunch menu at the hotel food court, Sassagoula. We contemplated eating there, but we ended up deciding to head to Epcot and just get lunch there. We wanted to make sure we made it there in plenty of time for our Fastpasses and to enjoy as much of the day as possible. So we headed to the bus stop!
We waited about 5 minutes before a bus to Epcot arrived.
It was only a 10 minute ride to get to Epcot from French Quarter.
As soon as we arrived, we had to go through bag check and security. Then we headed over to the Annual Passholder line to enter the park. We headed straight to The Land to eat lunch. We opted to eat at Sunshine Seasons since our first Fastpass was at Living with the Land. I have eaten here before, but my mom hasn't. It was really good as it was before. I am going to add to my previous post about Sunshine Seasons to include this visit.
We finished lunch around 1 pm, and we decided to go use our Fastpass at Living with the Land.
Since we still had almost an hour until our next Fasptass, we decided to go ride The Seas with Nemo and Friends. The wait was posted 20 minutes, but we literally walked right on. This is really common with rides like this. Below is one of my favorite scenes but getting a good picture is always impossible.
We still had a few minutes, so we went and rode Journey into Imagination with Figment. My mom was curious about this ride since Melody loved it in December, so I wanted to take her on it. Then we finally went and used our Fastpass at Soarin'.
After Soarin', we headed to grab our refillable bucket of popcorn. I really wanted a snack, and popcorn is a requirement while at Disney! The buckets are just $10, and the refill is $1.50. We definitely get our moneys worth during each visit to Disney. Plus I love Disney popcorn. And the buckets are just too cute. We have a nice collection, and whenever we have popcorn at home, we use these buckets often.
We went and used our Spaceship Earth Fastpass around 3:10 pm. I am certain mom and I both dozed off a few times! We even had some fun at the end of the ride and selected answers that we normally wouldn't just to see our results!
We went to MouseGear and I bought myself a millennial pink MagicBand. Brad gave me a Disney gift card for my birthday with specific items I was to buy with it. This was one of those items! It is so adorable. I wore it on Saturday and for the rest of the trip. I really wanted to buy the AP Festival Shirt, so we headed over to the Odyssey Festival Showplace and bought one for each of us. The shirt design is adorable, and even though I am not a huge fan of the festival, the shirt had to be purchased!
After shopping, we decided to try one of the snacks offered at The Painter's Palate. We bought the Gallery Bites: A Trio of Hors d'Oeuvres. It was pretty good. The Risotto Ball was a little overcooked in my opinion. It was just a tad too hard to bite into. The Deviled Egg was truly just a traditional deviled egg. It was ok, but not amazing enough to have again. My mom liked the candied bacon. I am not a fan of candied bacon, however. But I knew this going in! The best item was the cucumber cream cheese on the crostini. There was shrimp on it, but I wanted the crostini. But the shrimp was good too.
We went and tried a margarita at the new Choza de Margarita. Emily had tried one while we were there in December, but I didn't get the opportunity. So mom and I decide to try the Frozen Fiesta Margarita. It was a layered margarita containing the classic margarita, strawberry margarita, and passion mango margarita. It was just as amazing as it sounds. One of the best margaritas I have had at Disney by far. I will definitely have to get it on our next visit!
We decide to walk around the World Showcase while sipping on our margarita. We made a stop at the American Pavilion to grab our AP Print that was exclusive for the Festival. It was a really pretty print of Belle. I may have to frame it and add it to my craft room. I have a few other Disney prints to frame and place in there.
We also stopped and took a few pictures on our way through the countries.
We decided to leave Epcot around 5 through the International Gateway. I love this entrance/exit. It is so hidden and few really know about it or would even notice it. I am really going to miss its quaintness when the Disney Skyliner opens up. I know people at the connecting resorts will love the Skyliner, but for those of us that love this easy entrance from the Epcot hotels, it isn't a pleasure to see this coming. I feel like it will really take away from this hidden gem.
Anyway, after leaving, we decided to just sit on the beach at the Beach Club until closer to our dinner reservation time. We had a reservation at 6 at Beaches and Cream.
After about 20 minutes of relaxing, we decided to go check in. We were given a pager, but only had to wait 10 minutes before being seated.
We even got a nice booth! I was certain with just two of us they would make us sit at a small table, but I was wrong. It was such a nice treat! The food was good; the dessert was amazing! I will elaborate in a future post about it. I must say though, I can't imagine going back to Disney World and not stopping here. Even if we only get dessert!
We finished up around 6:30 or so, and we headed to the bus stop at the Beach Club to grab a bus to Disney Springs. This was really our only night to get to visit here, so we took advantage of it. There isn't much we care to do here, but there are a few shops I like to visit. I had a gift card to the Lego Store that I finally used. That was it on this trip, however. We did look around more, but I didn't find anything I had to have.
Around 8, we went and grabbed a boat back to the hotel. The boats were on the end of Disney Springs we were currently on, so it made the most sense. It was only about a 15 minute boat ride to the resort.
We had received a text and email around 1 pm that our room was ready, but this was the first time we were able to enter it since we were at the parks.
I plan to do a whole write up about our experience at French Quarter, but I will tell you it was amazing. By far this is my favorite moderate resort. The room was the perfect size for us, and it would have even been ideal had Melody came with us. My only complaint was that not a single room request was met. I did get a garden view per the room we paid for, but we had requested a corner room on the ground floor. Neither request was fulfilled. I get that they can't fulfill all requests, but it would have been nice if they had fulfilled one. We were in room 5238 which is building 5, 2nd floor. The building was a great building to get anywhere we would need to go really. But honestly, all the buildings are an easy walk to anything!
We decided to go down to the gift shop and get a drink to have in the room. We did the math, and it didn't make sense for us to get a refillable mug. Instead, we went and just bought a coke to put in our fridge in our room. It was only 50 cents more to get a 2 liter coke opposed to the 20 ounce, so that is what we did. When we got back to the room, I went and got ice, and we had coke to drink before bed and in the morning before heading to the parks. It was only $4.25 with tax, so it really did make the most sense for us.
We both showered and got things situated for the next day. I FaceTimed Melody and Brad, then we went to bed around 11:15 pm. However, before we fell asleep, I did go ahead and place our order for Be Our Guest breakfast that we had scheduled for the next morning. I will report about how that went in my next post!
