i wanna see what happens if i don't give up
My best friend Amy and her husband George were coming to Orlando for a little visit, and we got very lucky I was asked to work on a Disney Cruise job for the Wonder in Alaska and could bring guests during this time. While this did mean we only had one week in Orlando to do all the things we’re planning to do in two weeks, the challenge was accepted and we went hard.
After the airport pick up, we had our first American meal, a good old fashioned chick fil a.
They also brought us the haul from the UK so we could snack on things like Victoria sponge cake, dairy milk chocolate, and have a Nandos night.
Our first adventure day started bright at early at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. We rope dropped Pandora to see Avatar, for Amy who’s a big fan.
Next we popped over to Everest to single rider it, and Amy got lucky and got the front row.Our snack of the day was the chicken dumplings and seasoned fries. We headed to lunch at Dinoland for some chicken sandwiches later in the day.
After lunch, we headed onward to watch the Nemo and Lion King shows.
And finally finished out our time at DAK taking a little safari ride.
We finished Animal Kingdom in just about 5 1/2 hours, taking my favorite mode of transport, the parking tram!
We then where we to the other kingdom, Magic Kingdom.
We walked in and had to say hi to the boss man himself before watching the parade.
We followed up with some classic attraction choices like Pirates of the Caribbean, Tron, Haunted Mansion, and the best ride of all, the people mover.
I turned Amy into a pineapple gal by introducing her to dole whip! We also had the delicious cheeseburger and pizza spring rolls, I tried the Gaston tavern cream brûlée croissant, before dinner at Pecos Bills. Everything was delicious.
We of course had to say hello to Ariel in her grotto while at the kingdom.
A little later in the day in started to rain, delaying the fireworks. We sought shelter by singing our way through country best jamboree, more people mover, and riding buzz lightyear, where I finally became a galactic hero.
The fireworks happened right at the perfect time, and it was everything I’d dream they would be listening to the song “Happily Ever After” that connected us almost ten years ago in HK with Amy.
After our late night at Disney you would think we’d be ready for some rest, and we did rest from Disney.. and go to Universal.
The morning began with a roller coaster rope drop on Velocilcoaster (for them not me), before meeting a real live dinosaur, Blue!
We tried to continue our Jurassic Park adventure on the river rapids, but as we loaded the boat, some baby ducks were stuck in front of the loading area and shut down the ride for a bit.
We headed to lunch in Seuss where we chowed down on my new favorite, pizza corn dog, some pizza tots, and cookie dough.
What’s the best thing to do after lunch at a theme park? More roller coasters of course! They rode Hulk before we tackled Spider-Man together.
We also visited the most magical place at Universal, Hogwarts!
We transitioned to the other park at this point where we rode the new minions ride before the main attraction, the Bourne Stunt Show.
I had to leave for a bit after that to go to the dentist but they had a great time and finished up all the attractions at this park without me. When I returned, Mike had also joined us from work, and we all finally got on Jurassic park water ride.
We also checked out the hogwarts castle, snacked on a butterbeer ice lolly, and finished our night on the best ride of the park, the Seuss trolley (on both tracks!).
Bye Universal!
Next day was the day Amy was looking forward to the most, Seaworld! Now I am going to take a pause here for a second because Mike has some exciting news. He has been with this company a lot longer than we ever anticipated, and worked really hard learning a lot of a new things, but it's time for him to make a transition back to the house of mouse. He will be leaving Seaworld at the end of June and starting his transition back to photopass at Disney! So he has been doing some special thing at work to say goodbye, and even had some trainings already for new hellos! Very proud of you, Mike!
Ok back to our tour d'Orlando-We rope dropped a lot of coasters in the morning like Manta, Penguin Trek, and Kraken to get our day going at Seaworld.
We next tackled the water rides like Journey to Atlantis and Infinity Falls, which I had never been on.
We got to meet up with Mike on his lunch break before visiting the arctic animals, sea lions, and sharks.
We had a very special VIP encounter with the penguins where we got to cuddle a baby penguin. Amy met the penguins with me last time she came to SeaWorld and we met Rex, this time, we met Rex baby, Kingston! We also met Lumos!
We also couldn’t go the day without feeding the stingrays and seeing Amy’s real bff, Boomer the leopard ray.
After our special encounter, we saw the sea lion show, the dolphin show, and finished the day with the Orca show.
Since we ended at Seaworld a little earlier and there’s no nighttime show, we ran to Disney Springs for dinner at Chef Arts Smiths Homecoming. We also had to visit the Coca-Cola shop since Amy’s addicted.
Back to Disney the next day to do the parks we hadn’t seen yet. First stop was Epcot.
We rope dropped Guardians, and I visited my friend Billy from HK who is working in the China pavilion while they rode.
I took them to try all the different sodas in the club cool while we snacked on a Mickey pretzel with cheese.
We then rode soarin and found some lunch at Connections Cafe next. We finished Epcot in about 4 hours with a ride on the Mexico Pavilion boat ride, and a quick walk around thw world.
After grabbing a delicious berry latte from Jofferys, we headed to the skyliner to whisk us away to Hollywood Studios.
We had a shorter day at Hollywood only riding Tower of Terror and Muppetvision.
My favorites though were seeing the shows. We saw a very special performance of Beauty and the Beast, where my good friend Belle was singing.
We also saw the Indiana Jones stunt show, a classic favorite.
And we finished the day off with the new Little Mermaid show. I had actually been the week prior for the cast member preview of the show so I knew what I was in for!
We did not watch the new Villains show on this day either, but I had seen it for cast member preview also the week before. I really loved the creative space of using the set to bring some magical elements to life. The new music is also a bop!
The next day we had a very early day at Discovery Cove. Mike actually got to join us here, and it finally felt like vacation.
We started the morning with our all inclusive breakfast, where it was pouring and not a lot of people around.
While it was still quiet, we went to the cove to swim with the stingrays. They were very active since not a whole lot of people had been in yet!
Discovery Cove is an all inclusive resort so all day long we snacked on ice cream, soft pretzels, cookies, chips, and pizza.
That was when we weren’t stuffing our faces with the big lunch meal.
We also visited the bird aviary and got to feed our new feathered friends.
My favorite part of discovery cove is the big lazy river.
It was a great way to relax and unwind before heading out to Vancouver for our Alaskan cruise trip.
Although we did not make it to Epic Universe on this trip, a big congratulations to it finally opening! I was at Universal working on the day it opened, which was super fun since we had a doughnut truck at work!
Our next adventure with Amy and George was on the Alaska cruise and you'll have to check out my next blog post to read all about that. I want to show you what we did on their final day in Orlando though once we returned, and that was having an epic day at Aquatica.
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