All tagged Disney October 2021
Back in October, we made a last minute decision to head to Disney World for Melody’s fall break. We had Hilton points, so that made the trip more appealing. We had enough to stay for free at DoubleTree at Disney Springs. It was the best deal out of all the Disney Springs Hilton hotels, and we did like the idea of having the separate bedroom and mini-kitchen.
I did not mention this when writing about our time at Epcot, but we ended the night with a semi-upset child because she didn’t spend her gift card money from her Nannie. See Nannie gave all the girls a gift card since it is so rare they all go to Disney World (at the same time that is). Melody had been so torn on what to get, and she never found anything she loved. We didn’t really have time to go to the Creations Shop in Epcot at the end of our night. And Disney Springs sounded miserable that late too. So we told Melody we would go to Disney Springs when the opened. So that we did.
We spent our last day at Disney at Epcot. We opted to dedicate the whole day to Epcot. We had briefly considered returning to another park, but realistically staying at Epcot all day allowed us to see both Emily’s group and Rebekah’s group.
Tuesdays always seem to be a great day to visit Magic Kingdom, so we opted to do that. We ended the night at Epcot for the food! Epcot is our go to for great food, and we always have to fit in our must-dos. We snagged a decent timed reservation for Chefs de France on this evening, so we opted to do that.
We decided our first day would be spent at Hollywood Studios followed by the evening at Animal Kingdom. We opted for Hollywood first for a few reasons. One, we knew we wanted to also do Magic Kingdom and Epcot for sure. And those were fitting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Magic is never a good idea on Monday, and with the Food and Wine Festival going on, Epcot wasn't ideal for Monday either. We love doing Animal Kingdom at night, so that left Hollywood during the day. Melody LOVES Dinoland at Animal Kingdom, and we find it best in the evenings.
Not much fun is involved on travel days to Disney World. Especially when you are driving 10-12 hours. We got up as early as we could and headed down. We had to make the trip in one day, and we needed to get down to Orlando early enough that we could go to Shades of Green to get our park tickets before the ticket office closed.
Months ago, we found out both our in laws (brother/sister/nieces) and best friends were both going to Disney World during Fall Break. While it sounded fun to plan and tag along, several things kept us from booking a trip: money, 50th anniversary, Brad’s travel, crowds, etc. We also didn’t want to invade on their vacations. Well about two weeks before fall break, we still were not sure if Brad would be home or not. So I started looking at several options for Melody and me, including Disney. A few days before fall break, Brad found out he would be home, and we started floating around the idea. We kept going back to not going due to money and just the exhaustion of driving and a short trip. Melody was clueless about our family and friends going. But that changed the Friday before fall break. Her best friend, Lydia, found out she was going, and Melody started asking to go to Disney too. After a lot of talking, negotiating, and even some arguing, we decided Saturday morning we would head to Disney on Sunday. THE NEXT DAY! Thankfully I am a seasoned Disney goer, so this wasn’t impossible.
