Leaving for Orlando

We had tickets to Disney on October 12 and 13 with 2-day park hopper tickets. To avoid using PTO, I flew from Philly to MCO on the night of October 11 after work 6pm, and I flew home the morning of October 14 around 10am. The flight from Philly to MCO is just over two hours, so it is a very convenient and easy flight to take after work. Sam was flying from Oklahoma City with a layover in Dallas, and she would be landing a couple hours after me (we won’t get into her cancelled flight debacle).

I landed in Orlando at 8:45pm with my carry-on and made my way to an Uber to take me to our off-site hotel that was right near Disney Springs. This Uber was $56.30 (gotta love airport surcharges). In the spirit of saving money, we opted to not stay on Disney property, instead, we used my mom’s hotel points for a free hotel stay at Holiday Inn Orlando-Disney Springs (thanks mom!). This hotel is conveniently located near Disney Springs and offers bus services to the Disney parks every hour for free.

Once I got to my hotel, it was about 9:30 and I still hadn’t eaten dinner. I dropped my bags, and walked 20 minutes to The Polite Pig for dinner. I got a margarita, appetizer, and entree for $54- pricey, but this is Disney and it was good food! I made my way back to my room and rested up for my first early morning at the parks.

Day 1 of Disney

Animal Kingdom

I used the hotel’s free bus service to get to Animal Kingdom. The only downfall to this, is the multiple stops the bus makes. Even though the hotel is only 20 minutes from Animal Kingdom (AK) , it took almost an hour after all the stops to get to AK; this is when you have to decide if you want to save money or be efficient with your time. I got to AK around 9am and hit the ground running. I should mention, I was solo for the entirety of the AK portion due to Sam’s flight being cancelled and rescheduled.

I made my way to Pandora – The World of Avatar, since this area gets packed quickly. I opted out of the Flight of Passage because it makes me incredibly motion sick. Instead, I went on the leisurely Na’vi River journey after a 30 minutes wait. I grabbed a Pongu Lumpia for $5 and kept on walking.

I then waited in line for 45 minutes to get on the Kilimanjaro Safaris to see the animals. It was a great day to see the animals, as they were all out and roaming among the safari vans. I then went to Expedition Everest twice in the single rider line to avoid any wait – such a cheat code. I grabbed my Starbucks and kept walking around AK until a ride interested me. Next, was the Dinosaur ride; this is where you see the most traumatized kids get off a ride because it is actually pretty scary if they’re not adequately prepared, HA.

At about 12:30, I had done all I wanted to at AK and grabbed a $13 Lyft to drive me to Disney Springs to grab some lunch. I got a cuban hot dog, and walked back to my hotel, as if I wasn’t getting enough steps in so far! At this point, I was meeting Sam at the hotel so she could get in the room to drop her bags and get ready to head to Magic Kingdom (MK).

Magic Kingdom

We used the free bus service from the hotel to get to MK and arrived around 3:45pm. First thing we had to do was grab a mickey pretzel for $8 before embarking on Pirates of the Caribbean. We then worked our way to Big Thunder Mountain for a 45 minute wait in line. Followed by a jaunt over to Space Mountain when we saw the line was shorter than normal- it was still 40 minutes, but better than 60+ minutes. If you are familiar with the park, you can see we are following no pattern at all, rather just walking around aimlessly.

I got a lobster roll from Columbia House for $20 before getting on the Haunted Mansion just before the nightly fireworks show, Happily Ever After. I’ve seen this firework show a few times before, so I didn’t have to camp out and claim a seat an hour before it started, rather I walked around watching the fireworks as I got from point A to point B. During the fireworks, I got on the Little Mermaid with no wait. Lastly, I went on It’s a Small World for a casual ride before calling it a night. I got two scoops of ice cream for $8 and did some obligatory shopping along Main Street on my way out. I took the bus service back to the hotel and got to my room by 10pm after walking 11.5 miles!