madeline07
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2019
Intro
Hi! My name is Sydney, and I’ll be writing about my trip to Disney (and Universal) from March 2nd to March 7th, 2024. This is my first time back in a little over two years, so it’s my first time on Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Tron Lightcycle Run. I’m here with my friend, dad, and cousin, staying at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge in the Boulder Ridge Villas (we rented from David’s DVC Rentals!) I went to all four Disney parks and both Universal parks. Also very exciting: we’re here for Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival! Our trips usually fall during the Festival of the Arts, so I was happy about the new food booths and topiaries we’d get to see. Anyways, I’ll just jump straight into day 1: travel day, Animal Kingdom, and Disney Springs!
Day 1
My travel day started very early. I was the only one in my group flying into Orlando from Boston Logan Airport, and being the biggest Disney person in our group, I wanted to get there as early as possible to go to Animal Kingdom. I woke up at 4:30am and added a few last-minute items to my suitcase, and by 5:15am I was out the door and in my Uber to BOS!
For some reason, my usual airline (Southwest) doesn’t offer direct flights from BOS to MCO, so I opted for Delta. It was my first time at this terminal, and it was PACKED at 6am. I think a ton of people were also headed to their spring break destinations. My flight was supposed to board at 6:35am, and between bag check, security, a last-minute gate change, and grabbing an orange juice and chocolate chip muffin from Dunkin’ before the flight, I just made it to the gate as boarding was happening, which is rare for me. I get pretty anxious about missing flights, so I’m usually extra early to the airport. But I made it and the 3.5 hour flight was pretty uneventful! I watched Notting Hill as per a recommendation from a friend, and it was so sweet. For the rest of the flight, I napped and listened to music.
Soon we had landed in Orlando, and as soon as I stepped off the plane, I could feel the (very welcome) humidity, which was a nice change of pace from Boston weather. In a short matter of time, I got off the flight, hopped on the tram to baggage check, and got my bag. I called an Uber, and around 11:50am, I was pulling into Wilderness Lodge! Obviously, my room wasn’t ready. But I changed into warmer clothes, picked up our Key to the World cards, and checked my luggage at the bell desk before hopping onto the bus to Animal Kingdom at 12:10pm!
As soon as I stepped foot into Animal Kingdom, I headed straight towards Pandora to grab lunch at Satu’li Canteen. I placed a mobile order for cheeseburger pods (my favorite) and a Pandoran Sunrise drink and ate that inside. Since I had limited time in Animal Kingdom, I decided to drop the $17 on Genie+ to avoid lines when possible. After lunch, I headed towards Kilimanjaro Safaris to use my Lightning Lane and then proceeded onto Expedition Everest with another Lightning Lane. I had a great time on both, especially since I didn’t ride Expedition Everest during our last trip when it was closed for refurbishments. After that, I walked back to Pandora to hop in the stand-by line for Flight of Passage, a must-do for me (and pretty much everyone else). While in line, my friend texted that she had arrived at the resort, so after the ride, I started to make my way out of the park.
On the bus home, I got a notification that our room was ready, so once I picked my bags up from the bell desk and met my friend, we headed straight there! Neither of our Key to the World cards were working, so we had to use my phone to unlock the room. The room was very nice; my only “issue” was that I wish we were on a floor with a proper balcony rather than the first floor because I love to sit on the balcony to eat and relax. But this is no big deal at all. We relaxed in the room for a bit and walked down to the Wilderness Lodge Mercantile so I could pick up a Wilderness Lodge pin for my collection. Then, we got our stuff to head to Disney Springs!
We were pretty hungry but weren’t planning to get dinner until my dad and cousin arrived, so we ordered some fries from D-Luxe Burger to split. I’d been dreaming about their garlic ranch for two years, since our last trip. I dipped my fries in that ranch and truffle aioli, and they were amazing. By the time we’d finished, my dad and cousin were arriving at Disney Springs, so we met them at the entrance and started walking towards House of Blues for dinner. My dad really loves this restaurant, and luckily there was no wait. I was relatively full from the fries, so I got a chicken caesar salad and took pretty much the whole thing home. After dinner was relatively uneventful, my friend and I went to Basin so I could grab a lip balm (I use my Basin lip balm every night), and then we headed towards the bus to catch one back to the resort!
That concludes my first day at Disney. We went to bed when we got back in order to be prepared for Universal Studios the next day! Thanks for reading, see you with our next full day in Orlando!
Hi! My name is Sydney, and I’ll be writing about my trip to Disney (and Universal) from March 2nd to March 7th, 2024. This is my first time back in a little over two years, so it’s my first time on Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Tron Lightcycle Run. I’m here with my friend, dad, and cousin, staying at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge in the Boulder Ridge Villas (we rented from David’s DVC Rentals!) I went to all four Disney parks and both Universal parks. Also very exciting: we’re here for Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival! Our trips usually fall during the Festival of the Arts, so I was happy about the new food booths and topiaries we’d get to see. Anyways, I’ll just jump straight into day 1: travel day, Animal Kingdom, and Disney Springs!
Day 1
My travel day started very early. I was the only one in my group flying into Orlando from Boston Logan Airport, and being the biggest Disney person in our group, I wanted to get there as early as possible to go to Animal Kingdom. I woke up at 4:30am and added a few last-minute items to my suitcase, and by 5:15am I was out the door and in my Uber to BOS!
For some reason, my usual airline (Southwest) doesn’t offer direct flights from BOS to MCO, so I opted for Delta. It was my first time at this terminal, and it was PACKED at 6am. I think a ton of people were also headed to their spring break destinations. My flight was supposed to board at 6:35am, and between bag check, security, a last-minute gate change, and grabbing an orange juice and chocolate chip muffin from Dunkin’ before the flight, I just made it to the gate as boarding was happening, which is rare for me. I get pretty anxious about missing flights, so I’m usually extra early to the airport. But I made it and the 3.5 hour flight was pretty uneventful! I watched Notting Hill as per a recommendation from a friend, and it was so sweet. For the rest of the flight, I napped and listened to music.
Soon we had landed in Orlando, and as soon as I stepped off the plane, I could feel the (very welcome) humidity, which was a nice change of pace from Boston weather. In a short matter of time, I got off the flight, hopped on the tram to baggage check, and got my bag. I called an Uber, and around 11:50am, I was pulling into Wilderness Lodge! Obviously, my room wasn’t ready. But I changed into warmer clothes, picked up our Key to the World cards, and checked my luggage at the bell desk before hopping onto the bus to Animal Kingdom at 12:10pm!
As soon as I stepped foot into Animal Kingdom, I headed straight towards Pandora to grab lunch at Satu’li Canteen. I placed a mobile order for cheeseburger pods (my favorite) and a Pandoran Sunrise drink and ate that inside. Since I had limited time in Animal Kingdom, I decided to drop the $17 on Genie+ to avoid lines when possible. After lunch, I headed towards Kilimanjaro Safaris to use my Lightning Lane and then proceeded onto Expedition Everest with another Lightning Lane. I had a great time on both, especially since I didn’t ride Expedition Everest during our last trip when it was closed for refurbishments. After that, I walked back to Pandora to hop in the stand-by line for Flight of Passage, a must-do for me (and pretty much everyone else). While in line, my friend texted that she had arrived at the resort, so after the ride, I started to make my way out of the park.
On the bus home, I got a notification that our room was ready, so once I picked my bags up from the bell desk and met my friend, we headed straight there! Neither of our Key to the World cards were working, so we had to use my phone to unlock the room. The room was very nice; my only “issue” was that I wish we were on a floor with a proper balcony rather than the first floor because I love to sit on the balcony to eat and relax. But this is no big deal at all. We relaxed in the room for a bit and walked down to the Wilderness Lodge Mercantile so I could pick up a Wilderness Lodge pin for my collection. Then, we got our stuff to head to Disney Springs!
We were pretty hungry but weren’t planning to get dinner until my dad and cousin arrived, so we ordered some fries from D-Luxe Burger to split. I’d been dreaming about their garlic ranch for two years, since our last trip. I dipped my fries in that ranch and truffle aioli, and they were amazing. By the time we’d finished, my dad and cousin were arriving at Disney Springs, so we met them at the entrance and started walking towards House of Blues for dinner. My dad really loves this restaurant, and luckily there was no wait. I was relatively full from the fries, so I got a chicken caesar salad and took pretty much the whole thing home. After dinner was relatively uneventful, my friend and I went to Basin so I could grab a lip balm (I use my Basin lip balm every night), and then we headed towards the bus to catch one back to the resort!
That concludes my first day at Disney. We went to bed when we got back in order to be prepared for Universal Studios the next day! Thanks for reading, see you with our next full day in Orlando!
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which kind of sucked because I do really like that one. But neither of us were willing to wait 45 minutes for it. After leaving Seuss Landing, we headed straight towards Hogsmeade to ride Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure, which is always SO FUN. The line wasn’t too bad (probably between 40 and 50 minutes), we entered the regular queue rather than the single rider line like last year, so it was nice to be able to ride together instead of being next to random (but very nice, I’m sure) people. After that, we headed to Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which is so fun because it incorporates Harry, Ron, and some other characters that you don’t get to see in the other rides. The line for this wasn’t too bad either, around 20 minutes. 
