Disney August 2019
So back in August, we made a 100% completely spur of the moment trip. Like we started discussing it a week before leaving. And we didn’t even decide we were officially going until the day before. Brad was getting the Disney itch, my annual pass was still good, and we had points to that would cover the costs of the hotel. We would literally only pay for food, gas, and Brad and Melody’s tickets. It was also Brad’s birthday. And what better way to spend your birthday than at Disney?? So we pulled the trigger and went!
We left after Brad got off work on a Tuesday around 4 pm. We had no intention of driving all the way to Orlando because that would be near impossible. So we literally drove until we thought we couldn’t drive any more. We made it to Valdosta, GA. We booked a room at the Hilton Garden Inn when we were about an hour out. We did have to stop a few times on the drive for dinner and gas, but we made decent time.
We made it around 1 am or so. So about 8 hours driving. Immediately I found the area to be a bit sketchy, but all the things around the hotel were nice. There were just homeless people sleeping in the abandoned gas station down the street. OK, I can see beyond that. We pulled in and noticed there was literally no parking. People were literally parking on the curbs. Brad went in and check us in. Then we luckily found ONE parking spot and took our stuff upstairs. We booked a 2 queen room (that is all that the website had), but they were nice and gave us a king. So we got to our room, and we were immediately hit with the smell of smoking. It was apparent someone smoked in this room before. So we went downstairs and complained. With my allergies and my three old, a smoking room was in no way an option. Plus we booked a nonsmoking room.
The lady apologized. She said there is no smoking allowed so someone obviously broke the rules. She gave us another room and said we should have no issues with it. Well it is literally the room next door, so I didn’t have a good feeling. I also notice as we walk down the hall that some rooms have the no smoking symbol while others don’t. The others being the two rooms she gave us. Second room, same issue. This time Brad left all the stuff with me and he went to complain on his own. It was too much to carry Melody and all the things up and down, even with an elevator.
Apparently those were the ONLY TWO rooms available. So first off, I booked a 2 queen bed room. AND I specified there were 3 of us. The only two rooms were king rooms. What if Melody was 16. We couldn’t all sleep in a king. Second, uh you are telling me I have to sleep in a smoking room? She offered to refund our points, and she said that the Hampton Inn had rooms still available. She couldn’t book it for us though. We took the refund and got back in the car.
Its 1:30 am, and we are tired and irritable to say the least. I couldn’t book anything on my phone since it was after midnight. We called the Hampton Inn directly, but they couldn’t do it over the phone since we wanted to use points. So we called the Diamond hotline. They quickly got us a room available after explaining the situation, and as soon as we pulled up they were literally handing us our key. This hotel looked MUCH nicer. But I did have Brad check the room before we moved everything up.
Melody was SUPER tired at this point, but finally we were at a CLEAN hotel!
We slept in way past our plan, but the hotel hiccup kind of caused that. We got up, had breakfast, then we packed up and left. Melody loved all the Lucky Charms, and she was finally able to break into her coloring book we bought for the trip. Overall I highly recommend the Hampton Inn in Valdosta. It is super clean, it appears to be fairly new, and the staff was great.
We made it to Orlando around 1:30 eastern time (at this point everything will be eastern time). We wanted to try Freddy’s at the outlet mall. First problem, my phone took us to the wrong outlets, ugh. Then we finally got to the right outlets and made it to lunch. Thankfully lunch was AMAZING. Melody loved the custard. Then we headed over to the mall. It’s a Wednesday at 2 pm. I figured it wouldn’t be awful. I wanted to check out the Character Warehouse. Well parking was AWFUL! Then there were at least 25 people in line to GET IN the store. No way! No savings is worth that to me. So we left and went to meet my mom at the hotel we were staying at. (She happened to be in town for work.)
I have to stop right here and say this. At this point nothing had went right. We tried to get tickets on base, and they were sold out. Target didn’t have Frozen when we stopped to buy it for Melody. No Starbucks was open on our drive when we wanted it. Hotel issues in Valdosta. Late start leaving Valdosta. We went to the wrong outlets. And then we had issues once getting to the right outlets. We were really starting to get nervous on how this trip was going to go. But it DID get better!
We stayed at the Hilton Lake Buena Vista at Disney Springs. That is where my mom was staying and she was able to get us a room there. It was both of our first time staying there. It had a great location to Disney Springs, and they do offer extra magic hours as you can see below. We had a decent view, and a nice king bed! You can read all about our stay here, but we did really enjoy it.
We rested for about an hour or so, then we headed to Disney Springs. This would be our main day here to shop and eat. The walk was really easy.
Melody passed out not too long after we started shopping. And I was sure to go over and get the watermelon margarita at Dockside Margaritas. I will say, it did leave me with a headache though. I am not sure if it was the sugar or the tequila, or maybe even the heat.
My mom met us for dinner around 7 or so. We had Chicken Guy! Then we headed back to the room to call it a night semi-early. Melody played in the arcade some while I got a few things in my mom’s room. It was hard to get her out, but she eventually caved.
Then we headed to our room to crash before our park hopping began!
We decided to sleep in some and not rush to the parks. We had a fastpass scheduled for first thing for Peter Pan’s Flight, but I was easily able to change it to later in the day. That was sign one of how low the crowds were! We had our free breakfast at the hotel since we were diamond members, then we headed to the bus stop.
An issue we found about the buses here is they literally one every 30 minutes. A bus was sitting for 10 minutes, but would not come pick us up until 30 after on the dot. This was frustrating but I get it. The bus we rode that morning was like a charter bus. They stored our stroller under the bus.
The hotel also drops you off at the ticket and transportation center when going to Magic Kingdom. We haven’t road the boat in forever, so we opted to do that. We were literally the last ones on before it left. Signs were pointing up for today being a much better day. There were also super low crowds as you can see below. This was like 3 hours after park opening…
We snapped another set of pictures on our way to the teacups. Melody refused to participate in pictures. We went between the teacups and Dumbo a few times. The crowds were practically non-existent, but it was HOT. Literal sweat was pouring down my neck. During our many teacup rides, we also convinced Melody to ride Little Mermaid, The Peoplemover, Carousel of Progress, and the actual Carousel. It was so fun to see how much more engaged Melody was with all the rides this trip even more so that when we went earlier this year. She was so amused with everything.
We took a small break for lunch at Pinocchio Village Haus. Brad and I both had pizza. Melody had peanut butter crackers, ha.
Then we went and rode it’s a small world. Unfortunately Peter Pan’s Flight was down, and we were never able to get back around to it when it did reopen. We did ride Haunted Mansion. And Melody once again fell asleep. EVERY SINGLE TIME she falls asleep on this ride, ha! And I was completely unaware of the camera location. We then called it a day. Melody went to sleep in the stroller, but Brad and I took a few pictures before heading for the bus stops.
We took the bus to Animal Kingdom. My mom worked this day, but she did plan to meet us that evening for dinner and fun. Melody’s most favorite park is Magic Kingdom for all the rides that go in circles, ha. But she also LOVES Dinoland at Animal Kingdom. Primarily for The Boneyard. So that was our priorities for the day. So off to AK we went, and they slept…
As soon as we got to AK, it started pouring. We were able to hover under a rock until it stopped, then we took a small break at Restaurantosaurus. Brad got a slushy, I got a tea, and we also bought a popcorn bucket. We dried off and relaxed a bit before heading to The Boneyard. I continued relaxing while Brad chased Melody, ha.
Once my mom arrived, she offered to watch Melody for us to ride a few rides together. So I was easily able to get a FP+ for Everest within a few minutes of the current time, so we headed there first. And I bombed our ride picture again, ha. Then we went to Dinosaur.
At this point we headed back to The Boneyard and let Melody ride TriceraTop Spin before heading back to Restaurantosaurus to eat dinner. The specialty dessert can be found below. It was ok. I am not a fan of coconut, but it was good otherwise. While eating, I was able to get Brad and I a FP+ for Flight of Passage, and I got one for Melody and my mom for Na’vi River Journey. Both were only about 30 minutes away, so that was a WIN. We rode both, then got FP+ for the Safari. FYI, they no longer let you take strollers through the FP+ line. That was frustrating. Then we went and got our Simba AP Magnet (the line was SO long upon arrival, but was non-existent when we were leaving). Our bus back to the hotel was a normal Disney bus.
We made it back a decent hour, and we all took showers and headed straight to bed. We had a big day coming up!
We started off Friday morning letting Brad open up his birthday presents.
Then we drove to Epcot. We planned to spend the entire day here, and the buses didn’t run until one hour before park opening. Well we had a pre-park open breakfast. So driving it was. But it was EMPTY! We got there about 5 minutes before one hour out. The security wasn’t even open yet. But once it opened, we were let in pretty quickly.
We took our usual picture of Melody’s stroller parked at The Land. Then we headed for our breakfast at Garden Grill. I know, we torture Melody. But I do hope one day she will love the characters. And this one of our most favorite meals. So we keep trying. She didn’t eat much, which made me thankful that didn’t charge us for her. She literally only drank milk and ate some yogurt I brought with us. She pretty much stayed down with her head in Brad’s lap the entire meal. But I did get a picture of her with Pluto in a sense, ha. Brad and I each took turns riding Soarin’, then we all rode Living with the Land.
At this point we checked the status of Galaxy’s Edge. It opened the day prior, and we had no intentions of going this visit. However, they were letting people in without having to do boarding groups. So we thought we would take the opportunity to visit. We had the time, so why not?! We did get a peak of the Skyliner on our way out of the International Gateway. And the boat was literally pulling up as we walked up for it!
We rode the boat to Hollywood Studios, and we literally walked right tin Galaxy’s Edge without any issues or major crowds really. I have already done a post about our experience here, so I won’t re-write that. But we had a lot of fun and experienced so much. We tried the milks (we both hated he green and loved the blue). We bought a few souvenirs, and we took lots of pictures. And my mom and her friend met up with us for a bit. We then headed to Backlot Express for lunch. It started storming, but I actually saw a bloggers encounter with single rider at Smuggler’s Run. So Brad ran over and literally rode it within about 10 minutes. I think this really made his birthday special!
We then went and took the boat back to Epcot. It was so hot. Even on the boat. But it is the price you pay for low crowds, ha. And I love that smile on that baby girl! She was super happy she got a new Anna and Elsa.
Back at Epcot we headed towards the “big ball” per Melody’s request. She had been asking to ride it all day. On the way Brad grabbed some steak from Canada for the Food and Wine Festival. Literally that was the only thing we tried, ha. It is not our favorite festival. After the ride, we played for a bit before heading to ride Living with the Land one last time. It would likely close before we made it to the front of the park again.
At this point we headed to Frozen Ever After. I haven’t received my ride picture yet, but I can promise you Melody looks terrified. She screamed and still hates it. But we made up for it by meeting Anna and Elsa. Such precious moments!
I tried the bubble tea in China with the bubbles this time. (Last trip they were out of the bubbles). I hated them, ha. I drank around them the best I could. And I had time to wait while the bride was up.
Then it was time for Brad’s birthday dinner at Chefs de France. As soon as we got our drinks, Melody literally spilled her milk EVERYWHERE, including on her new Anna. We cleaned everything up and got Melody changed. Thankfully Anna doesn’t smell and survived. And we had a wonderful meal!
We then headed to do some shopping in the World Showcase and MouseGears. This ended with Melody passed out. We found a good spot for our last viewing of Illuminations, and she even slept through all of it, ha!
The drive back to the hotel was super easy and not much traffic at all. I was sad our reusable bag from Galaxy’s Edge is practically not useable after one day! But I was super happy I got my Minnie AP Magnet. And Melody was wide awake and eating donuts.
I didn’t really get any pictures of the next day, but we slept in and had a late breakfast at the hotel with my mom and her friend. Melody hung out with my mom, and Brad and I did some last minute shopping at Disney Springs. We headed out around noon towards home. We did stop a few times. Lunch, Gas, Dinner, Gas, Rain, etc. But we made it home around 1 am. We were thankful we didn't have to stop for a hotel on the drive back, but the time change helps.
We had so much on this quick and spontaneous trip. I think Brad had a great birthday celebration getting to experience Galaxy’s Edge. It also got him his “fix” for a few months at least, ha!
