My sister-in-law recently fulfilled a life-long dream of becoming a CM at WDW! She received some guest one-day park passes and shared them with my daughters and myself!
We made the long drive down I-95 and spent a week with her family...splitting our time between their house and their camper off-site in Kissimmee.
The best day for us to go was 12/30/16...which also ended up being the coldest day of the week!
We were able to secure fast passes for Soarin' and Spaceship Earth the night before...none of the other rides that were available for fast passes appealed to us. These fast passes were for really late...Spaceship Earth 8:00-9:00 pm and Soarin' for 9:05-10:05.
We decided to start our day at AK so my youngest could try to ride Expedition Everest. She opted out the last time we were in AK. We made it there a little after nine. We headed straight to EE. She was nervous, but decided to go for it. The posted wait time was already 25 minutes. It really felt like we were in the Himalayas. We were freezing and in the queue they had the fans going like it was 90 degrees outside! She and I got to ride in the very first car! This is my favorite ride at WDW, but I have to admit riding in the first car gave me a little hesitation. She had the death clutch on me the entire time, and for the most part had her eyes closed too! She did open her eyes when we were going up the hill to see Spaceship Earth and Tower of Terror. She also opened her eyes to see all the hair ties that people throw out on the ride. I tried my best to get her to open her eyes to see the Yeti's shadow, but she would have nothing to do with it! Afterwards, she said she loved it! I was so cold, I thought about buying a knit hat in the gift shop, but I put it back and hoped it would get warm soon!
We then headed over to the Festival of the Lion King so we could feel some warmth. We made it just in time to get in and be a part of the giraffe section. It was nice and warm in there!
We were already hungry and it was a little before 11:00. We decided to stop at the Yak & Yeti CS. All of us enjoyed our food and with bellies full we decided to find another warm place...so we headed to the Finding Nemo show. Not so fast...we had to stop and visit with Baloo and King Louie. Once we got there, we had to wait in the outside line for about 15 minutes. The show was really good. The performers had really strong beautiful voices.
We went over to Dinoland and took a spin on Triceratop Spin. This area was the most crowded I had ever seen it. It is usually a ghost town when I am there, but on this day, I was actually bumping into people.
We decided to go over to Rafiki's Planet Watch. The train ride was chilly. It was here that my youngest decided to become a Wilderness Explorer, and collect some badges. As she and I wandered around collecting badges, the others sat on a bench and soaked up the warmth. We also met Rafiki here.
On our way out of the park, we stopped at the bar in Yak & Yeti, and ordered a piece of mango pie and cheesecake with mango to go. We had never tried either one, and let me say...the mango pie is amazing! This is now a must-have! The only other ride we were interested in was the safari, but it had over an hour wait so we decided not to go there.
We headed back to the camper to try our desserts and nibble on some real food. We also added some layers so we wouldn't freeze too much at Epcot.
I think we got to Epcot around 5:00 pm. I noticed here that everyone has to walk through a metal detector. At AK, they don't make everyone walk through the scanner.
We headed to the Disney/Pixar shorts experience. I really liked the first short...Get a Horse! Amazing! We headed to World Showcase starting at Mexico and made our way around. We took the Gran Fiesta Tour. The kidcot stations were handing out a Christmas coloring page. My youngest got a blank one and as we went around the world got it stamped and decorated at each country. We all got some Nudel Gratin in Germany.
After we browsed the countries and collected stamps, we used our fast passes for Spaceship Earth. We decided to go find Nemo. On the way over there, we took a peak at the meet and greet for Baymax and Joy and Sadness. We didn't wait in line, but we watched them interact with some guests for a little while. The queue for Nemo was really warm so we didn't mind waiting the 15 minutes it took to wind our way to the clam-mobiles! We spent some time in the aquarium buying time until our Soarin' fast passes. We then went to the Land Pavilion and got a drink in Sunshine Seasons and waited for our fast pass time to open. We had to wait about 20 minutes in the queue for Soarin'. I am pretty sure something was going on, but finally a CM came out and apologized for the wait and took us in. Once we were in, they kept having problems with someone's seat belt on the front row, and so we had to sit there for awhile. I hadn't seen the new movie. I really enjoyed it.
As we were leaving, Illuminations was happening. We took time to dance on the twinkly sidewalks, but quickly left so we wouldn't get stuck in the traffic of everyone leaving.
Final thoughts: That mango pie is AWESOME! I really enjoyed the Disney/Pixar short experience. I wish they had more of these artistic experiences in the parks. I miss the animation classes at HS...Even though I was cold for most of the day, a day at WDW is a day well spent!
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A Mighty Cold Day at WDW! 12/30/16
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