Walt Disney World Vacation June 2022

We spent our 28th Anniversary at Walt Disney World. June isn't the best time to visit Florida due to the extreme heat, but it was actually hotter in North Carolina during our trip. We got a standard view room at Animal Kingdom Lodge, and we lucked out with an actual Savannah view. We could see all kinds of animals through out the day. It was amazingly cool.

I won't go into great detail about everything we did during our trip. It was food, fun, and way too much sun.

We did get to ride the new coaster in Epcot. Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind was over the top. The story was fun, the music was great, and the coaster was way faster and more intense than I expected. I'll ride it again when I can, but I was motion sick after for at least half an hour.

Walt Disney World Vacation February 2022

For my 51st Birthday this year we stayed at Port Orleans Riverside again. We had a great time with our friends, who will hopefully go with us again sometime.

I'll share just a few highlights from this trip.

Our dinner at Tokyo Dining was wonderful.

It was fun to watch our friends first time in Galaxy's Edge.

Magik Kingdom was full of magic and wonder, like always.

Animal Kingdom wasn't too busy.

We had dinner at Boma - Yumm!

We got back home with blisters, a flat tire, and needing to catch up on sleep.

Walt Disney World Vacation September 2021

After a great deal of teeth gnashing and contemplation we decided to go ahead and go to Disney World this year. We had previously purchased tickets that were expiring soon. We were worried about the pandemic and taking risks. We have been so good over the last two years. We are both fully vaccinated. And, if anywhere is going to be safe, surely it's Walt Disney World.

So we drove to Florida and stayed at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort. The resort was really nice, it is very similar to Port Orleans Riverside, where we often stay. Our room was in the Jamaica section of the resort. The only issue we had with our room was minor, we were about a half mile from the food court.

Our room was very close to the Sky-Liner station. We used this several times and it was much better than using the Bus. One thing to note, there are frequent stops on the Sky-Liner for when people have issues getting on or off the moving cars, or when there are any other issues. Once when it stopped suddenly, our car was swinging forward and back way more than normal. It was more than a little startling. This only happened once during our trip, most of the time the stops are very mild and brief.

The parks weren't very busy at all. It seems that many people are waiting for the 50th anniversary festivities to begin. I suspect the parks will be crazy in October. We did get to see a bunch of the decorations for the 50th, including some of the new statues, as well as the new castle paint job and decorations.

As expected September can be a rough time in Florida. It's hot like an oven. It also rains every day, and after the rain it often feels even hotter. You are better often going out in the morning, then taking a break in the afternoon, and going out again at night.

We were even able to ride the new Mickie and Minnie Runaway Railroad, and Rise of the Resistance. And, of course Muppet Vision 3D.

We felt reasonable safe in the parks. Mask use is required in-doors except when eating or drinking. There were, of course, plenty of jerks who dropped their masks when they thought they could get away with it. But, Disney is good about enforcement and keeping things clean.

We already can't wait for our next trip.

Mising Disney Trips

Really missing our regular trips to Walt Disney World. We had to cancel 2 trips, and would likely have planned another trip by now. It's good to focus on the positives. But, sometimes the simple things are what we miss the most.

Anniversary Disney Trip

We celebrated our 25th Anniversary this June. We decided last year to go to Walt Disney World multiple times this year. One of these trips being for our Anniversary. We were worried about going in during the summer due to the crowd levels and heat, but this was a once in a lifetime event.

We normally do a moderate amount of planning for our WDW trips. Decide on a rough schedule up front, reserve dinner reservations, and fast passes for our favorite or hard to get rides. We have also gotten into the habbit of always going for almost a whole week - Saturday to Friday. It takes us about 8.5 hours to drive there and back. You can use extra magic hours and crowd levels to determine where you want to go on each day of a trip. We almost always plan on one day for Animal Kingdom, one day for Hollywood Studios, 1-2 trips to Epcot, and 2-3 times at Magic Kingdom. We always have either a Season Pass or Park Hopper so we can jump parks and change plans if we want to. We also try to plan on a whole day or multiple half days for resort resting. Taking a break can make things much more relaxing and less stressful on your body.

The schedule for this trip ended up like this:

• Day 1
  • Drive to WDW
    • Staying at Port Orleans Riverside
  • Magic Kingdom
  • Dinner at Skippers Canteen

• Day 2
  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Disney Springs for Lunch and shopping
    • Lunch: Frontera
  • Animal Kingdom
    • Fast Pass for Everest changed to Safari due to rain
    • Fast Pass for Flight of Passage
  • Animal Kingdom Lodge / Kidani Village Resort
    • Dinner: Sanaa

• Day 3
  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Magic Kingdom
    • Fast Pass: Big Thunder Mountain
    • Fast Pass: Haunted Mansion
    • Fast Pass: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
  • Lunch:
  • Back to Resort
  • Contemporary
    • Dinner: California Grill

• Day 4
  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Epcot
    • Lunch: Fish and Chips
  • Hollywood Studios
    • Fast Pass: Tower of Terror
    • Fast Pass: Slinky Dog
    • Dinner: Hollywood Brown Derby

• Day 5
  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Lunch: Resort
  • Magic Kingdom
    • Fast Pass: Space Ranger Spin
    • Dinner: Be our Guest
    • Fast Pass: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

• Day 6
  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Disney Springs
    • Lunch: D-Luxe Burger
  • Epcot
    • Dinner: Nine Dragons
    • Fast Pass: Frozen

• Day 7
  • Breakfast: Resort
  • Drive Home

Good:

• Fun vacation with my Best Friend.
• Off the diet for a week and only gained 5 lbs.
• Many days weren't nearly as crowded as we expected.

Bad:

• New smoking areas are outside the park, so we always smell smoke when entering the parks now.
  • Saw multiple people sneaking smoking and vaping in the parks. :(
• Very rainy trip. Most days the storms kept it from getting too hot.
• Last full day was hot hot hot.

Disney World Birthday Trip

Trying to catch up on posts I should have already completed.

We went to Disney World for my Birthday this year. It was great, as always. We are going more times this year than we ever have. Having a season pass really encourages multiple trips.

This was also the longest trip we have ever taken with our Tesla. It made the drive longer than it normally is, but it was also more comfortable than normal. We stopped at 4 super chargers there and back. The Tesla charging network makes owning an electric vehicle easy for trips like this.

It really helped staying at Fort Wilderness. The cabin only had a 110v outlet, but that was enough to charge the car back to full in a couple of days.

We try to go to the Magic Kingdom a couple of times during our trips.

This was our first time riding Splash Mountain. We usually skip it, because we don't want to be wet the whole day. But, it was raining anyway and the lines were more reasonable than normal. Of course it was fun.

We got lucky and saw Kevin at Animal Kingdom. This was one of the first times she was wandering the park.

I'm always so impressed with the level of theming here. My photos never really do it justice.

We are already planning for a couple more trips this year. Can't wait.

Disney World 2017

This years trip to Disney World has come and gone.  I'm already thinking about when we can return.  I'm still betting we end up moving down there in the future.  I just love the place.  I always feel like a kid there.

We once again stayed at the Wilderness Lodge. We aren't members of Disney's Vacation Club, but I still consider this our home resort.  There are other resorts we want to try, but I always feel comfortable here.

One high point of this trip, was our first night dinner at Sanaa a restaurant at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Everything here was wonderful. It was super busy, but the excellent service and always great way Disney deals with food allergies made it a perfect meal.  If you go here deff try the bread service.

Now I just have to figure out how soon we can return.

10,000 Steps

This year we decided to become more active. This decision came about mostly because of our upcoming Disney World trip. But, we also wanted to increase our average activity level to lose weight and to improve our health. When we started my average week looked something like this:

I'm using the Pedometer++ app and the iPhone 5S M7 chip to track my walking. Slowly increasing my goal over several months results in a graph that looks more like this:

The change was gradual and for the most part easy. Combining increased activity with fewer snacks is also having the side effect of lowering my weight. Which I really, really, really need to happen. I also feel better and have more energy than I have in years.

Not much else to say about it. Buy good shoes, Read, and give it a try.