Day 6 – Orlando Trip Report, September 2018

Here was our basic itinerary for the day:

• Morning Park: Hollywood Studios for Extra Magic Hours [EMH]
• Afternoon: Disney Springs for a lunch reservation at Chef Art Smiths Homecomin’ at 13:35
• Evening Park: Epcot
• Fastpasses: Toy Story Midway Mania (9:25-10:25), Star Tours (10:30-11:30) & Rock’n’Roller Coaster (11:30-12:30)

Day 6 – Sunday 9th September 2018

Our one aim for the morning was to ride Slinky Dog Dash – we did have a fastpass for it but wanted to make sure we could ride it more than once during our trip. We made it to Hollywood Studios for around 7:30am and made the long walk from the car park to the front entrance (long at the time due to construction). When we arrived at security we were met by a sea of people and this is where we made our first mistake. My mum had realised that she had left her phone in the car and so left me and my sister with her bag whilst she ran back to go grab her phone at which point my sister and I just joined a random queue. For those who have never been through Disney security, before you enter the park you need to have your bag searched and to try and speed up this process they ask guests to form two queues per table/security guard. The mistake we made was just joining a queue without having a look around first. Our queue moved very slowly and I could see others around us moving a lot quicker however it seemed like I was bolted to the floor and couldn’t jump ship (I think for fear of joining an even slower moving queue which to be honest probably couldn’t have happened). We were around 10 people from the front of the queue before I realised the issue was that we’d ended up in a line that did not split. My mum actually managed to make it into the park before us and messaged asking where we were so she was the one to break the bad news that Slinky was already a 60 minute wait. We didn’t end up making it into the park until around 8:20am, so we skipped Toy Story Land and headed to do Rock’n’Roller Coaster [RNRC] and then my mum & I went on our favourite Tower of Terror (to say my sister isn’t a fan is a bit of an understatement). By this stage I believe the park had just opened so we headed over to Star Tours to ride that and then went to meet Hollywood Minnie & Sorcerer Mickey.

Our first fastpass for Toy Story Mania was now active so we headed over to do that, took some pictures at the popsicle & checker-board walls (at the exit to Midway Mania) and then stopped by Woody’s Lunchbox to pick up the Mystic Portal Punch in the souvenir sipper (yes I was sucked in by the novelty cup and no I do not regret it in the slightest). We strolled over towards Star Tours sipping on our refreshing Powerade fuelled drinks as we went and then headed onto Star Tours for our second fastpass. We finished off our time in Hollywood Studios on our last fastpass of the day (RNRC) and then headed back to the car and made our way to Disney Springs. We stopped by World of Disney, where I purchased my first spirit jersey, and then we headed over to Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ – I was super excited for this reservation because A) I’d heard so many good things and B) I LOVE chicken. It was around 20 minutes after our reservation time before we got seated (turns out it’s a popular place for Sunday brunch/lunch) which is just something worth noting – despite the fact we arrived 15 minutes before our reservation slot it was still a while before we got seated. The food however was worth it – my sister and I got the fried chicken and doughnuts whilst my mum got the fried chicken and biscuits. Our plan afterwards was to do a little bit more shopping but we were too full so decided to head back to the hotel and chill for a bit instead.

Our plan for the evening was to head to Epcot primarily to try some dishes from the Food & Wine Festival. The weather was set to be awful with terrible thunder and lightening storms but we figured we’d head out anyway. As we were going for F&W we decided to take the Disney bus instead of the car so we could enjoy some alcohol (grapefruit beer from Germany I’m looking at you). We had made a fastpass for Spaceship Earth earlier in the day so that was our first port of call. As we exited the ride you could feel the change in the air so we knew a storm was heading our way, we decided to head over towards the Land & Seas area as we knew we wanted to try the Piggy Wings from Flavours Of Fire and also do the Seas with Nemo & Friends which we chose to head to first. We spent a bit of time watching the animals in the aquarium hiding from the rain before venturing out to experience our first taste of F&W. We stood waiting to order our food as the lightening and thunder beckoned around us – again though the piggy wings were worth it. We decided we were going to head towards the Germany pavilion to grab a beer and watch illuminations – we opted for the beer flight and my sister also picked up the mac & cheese from active eats.

We had planned to watch Illuminations but it was delayed because of the weather and we were all quite tired and I was also feeling a little ill so at 9:15pm we decided we would start walking towards to front of the park to catch the bus we provided an interesting view of illuminations which was nice to see – it also meant we missed the huge mass exit bus crowds which was also nice. We made it back to our hotel room around 10:15pm and pretty much headed straight to bed ready for a chilled morning the next day. Do you have a favourite dining location at Disney Springs? Are you a stan of Food & Wine or is there another festival you prefer? I’d love to know, until next time…