Day 11 – Orlando Trip Report, September 2018

Here was our basic itinerary for the day:

• Morning Park: Magic Kingdom for Extra Magic Hours
• Afternoon: Mini Golf 
• Evening: Dinner reservation at Whispering Canyon at 7:30pm
• Fastpasses: Tomorrowland Speedway (9:55-10:55), 7 Dwarfs Mine Train (11:15-12:15) & Enchanted Tales With Belle (12:30-13:30)

Day 11 – Friday 14th September 2018

We left our room at Port Orleans French Quarter around 7:15am to grab a quick snack for breakfast before heading to extra magic hours at Magic Kingdom, where we had a day of firsts planned. Once inside we headed straight for Space Mountain as we hadn’t had the greatest luck riding it this holiday, fortunately this time it worked in our favour. After Space Mountain we headed to do a ride we’d never done before – Astro Orbitor. Both my mum and my sister are a little scared of heights so I imagine that is why we’ve never been on it before but for some reason we decided this holiday would be the time to do it. After Astro Orbitor we headed over to do another ride we’d never done before – The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I am so sad I have not ridden this ride more because it was so cute and unexpected in parts, we all thoroughly enjoyed it. After a trip in the Hundred Acre Woods we saw that Enchanted Tales with Belle was only a 5 minute wait so we decided to head over and do it now then try and swap our fastpass for something else. Big Mistake, turns out Enchanted Tales with Belle is one of the slowest moving queues ever. I think we ended up waiting almost 30 minute before we reached the first room. I can understand the appeal if you’ve a Belle crazy member in your party but now that I’ve done it I wouldn’t be using a fastpass on it again. After reliving the day Belle & Beast fell in love we popped under the sea to visit Ariel and her friends before heading over to Storybook Circus for another first ride on Dumbo (although I think we may have ridden it during our first WDW trip). After Dumbo we went to use our first fastpass of the day on yet another first – Tomorrowland speedway. To this day I’m still torn on whether I enjoyed the speedway or not, they’re difficult to drive, the bugs are horrendous and the smell isn’t pleasant but there is a nice sense of nostalgia on the ride which I did enjoy.

It had reached 11am and we decided it was time for a rest from the heat and for something sweet. During the holiday I really wanted to try a citrus swirl and a dole whip. Mum and I decided we would split the two between us, that way we’d get to try both. We got our citrus swirl then wandered over towards Aloha Isle to enjoy it and have a sit down. After we used mobile ordering to get a dole whip float, but the main question is: which was better? I’m going to cop out slightly and say that I enjoyed both just as much as the other. Whilst enjoying our treats we made a list of the things we still wanted to do and one that was high up on everyone’s lists was seeing Pandora at night. We realised that tonight was potentially the only night we could fit it in without missing something else so we had a look to see if we could change our reservation from 7:30 to something earlier. We ended up being able to rearrange it for 5:15pm. After our treats we headed over to do our second fastpass of the day 7 dwarfs mine train and then went for a spin on the people mover before using a third fastpass for Buzz (which I’d managed to change whilst in the queue for Enchanted Tales with Belle) and then heading back to the car.

We left French Quarter feeling refreshed and hungry around 4:15pm to head to Fort Wilderness and let me tell you this resort is BEAUTIFUL, definitely on the bucketlist. We were excited for this meal because of the all-you-care-to-enjoy skillet option: Brisket, ribs, chicken, sausage, pulled pork, mash, green beans & sweetcorn. Unfortunately we were rather underwhelmed – the sweetcorn and green beans were smothered in butter and the barbecue items didn’t really taste of BBQ. For dessert I had the chocolate cake and my mum and sister had the apple pie. I think I was just feeling a little underwhelmed in general but I didn’t really enjoy this meal and I’m still not sure I’d go back.

Once we’d finished dinner we headed over to Animal Kingdom for around 7pm and went to ride Everest using a fastpass we’d managed to get earlier in the day. By the time we came off Everest it had started to get dark so we wandered over to Pandora to start exploring. Pandora is visually stunning but it is a completely different world at night so I would highly recommend scheduling some time in to view it if you can. After soaking in Pandora right until the park closed, including getting to see the Swotu Wayä (Pandora drummers) I grabbed a quick Mickey ice cream sandwich to enjoy on the way back to the car.

Tomorrow we have a chilled morning planned before a delicious lunch in Teppan Edo (spoiler) so make sure you check back to hear all about that one. Until next time…