Disney World 50th Anniversary Trip Report (Part 2 - Arrival Day)

 

Heading to Orlando

I’m going to skip over most of the details of our flight, etc. and get straight to Orlando. Relevant from a family travel perspective, we found that facing our car seat forward let it fit much better in Spirit’s tiny rows. We’re currently traveling with two personal items, one carry-on (Away Carry On), and a car seat. Zoe continues to be a testy flier because Z hates being in the car seat and loves climbing all over everything, but we do our best to survive. We made the mistake of getting Chinese food to eat on the plane—keep your plane food to hand food / wrapped food, like sandwiches or burritos.

We landed early, just before 5PM. While we’d usually take Magical Express (which is ending this year in any case), that service can be slow and we really wanted to get Zoe to the hotel for dinner and bed ASAP, so we had Lauren book us a car (since we had a car seat with us, Uber would also have been an okay option, but airport prices can vary wildly). Getting on the airport tram at 5:15PM we were in our room at Pop at 6:04PM.

 

Pop Century and Hollywood Studios

With online check-in and a late-ish arrival, we didn’t have to stop by the front desk. There’s nothing new or notable about our room at Pop Century. We last stayed at Pop in June, and I’ve reviewed the hotel more thoroughly. Because of the Skyliner and new rooms (newer than Art of Animation), Pop Century remains our go-to value hotel and one of my favorite hotels at Disney World.

I had to call for a Pack ‘n’ Play. I’m 110% confident the request was noted in our reservation, but there’s just a gap in their systems these days and you need to plan for a ~20 minute wait getting your Pack ‘n’ Play. Luckily, Zoe had to eat dinner still, so this didn’t delay bedtime.

 

In the above picture you can see a cover we use for the Pack ‘n’ Play. It’s hard to say how well it works. You can tell some light gets in, but Zoe has always slept pretty well in it. We use this one, but there are plenty similar options on Amazon.

 

While Emily put Zoe to bed, I headed over to Hollywood Studios. Rise of the Resistance just switched to standby (it no longer uses the virtual queue) and I wanted to see what that’s like (yes, I know it’s exactly like you’d expect…waiting in a line…).

Leaving our room at 6:38PM I was on the Skyliner at 6:44PM, transferring at Caribbean Beach at 6:48PM, and inside Hollywood Studios at 6:57PM. The Skyliner is such a great transit option, and pretty close to ideal anytime that isn’t rope drop or immediately when a park closes. 

 

Ride waits were pretty low across the board when I arrived. With two hours left in the park day, I could have gotten more done starting with something other than Rise, but that was my mission for the day.

 

Getting in line at 7:02PM when the posted wait was 60 minutes, I was off the ride at 7:45PM. I decided to squeeze in Tower of Terror, too, basically walking right onto that ride.

At 8:10PM I was heading out, but waits were still dropping:

I probably could have ridden Smugglers Run single rider, then Slinky Dog Dash, then gotten in line for Runaway Railway right as the park closed. That would have been epic, but I headed back to Pop for a drink at my favorite place, Petals!

 

I’m disappointed that Petals still hasn’t brought back bar seating. I like being able to sit and chat with other guests or the bartender. Very little is ever new or exciting to us at Disney World, so hearing what other guests are excited about is a treat.

I was able to mobile order a burger from Everything Pop for dinner. The cafeteria is no longer mobile order only, as it was during our June visit, but mobile order is still convenient, particularly when ordering vegetarian items (like Beyond or Impossible Burgers) that can take extra time to prepare.

A long travel day for us but a short post for you, that’s all for today. Tomorrow we start the trip right with an early morning at Magic Kingdom!