My wife and I honeymooned in Orlando from November 5 through 14. We were going to go to Europe when we originally planned the wedding pre-COVID, but we were wary of international travel, so Disney World was the natural fallback. The first three nights we stayed in Universal's Endless Summer Surfside resort and did Universal parks, but I won't cover that here. For the last six nights, we moved to Disney's All-Star Music resort and hit a park each day. I had been to Disney three times (2002, 2005, 2009) and she had never been before.
I was worried about going to All-Star Music after reading this sub, but it was honestly fine. The rooms are newly renovated, the place is clean, the service is very good. The food court actually served up some good food including a killer chipwich for post-park dessert. The buses to and from each park didn't take very long at all, though they were often crowded in the morning and at night. We tried our best to open and close each park, including the early park admission, but didn't stress over "rope dropping" at any point.
Check-in day we did Animal Kingdom and arrived around 10:30am, figuring it was the "least important" of the four parks. How wrong I was - we ended up loving it. It honestly might be my new favorite. I love animals so I loved seeing the safari and the various animal exhibits there. The Bug's Life 3D movie is cute and funny. Expedition Everest is a fantastic ride and we were able to just walk right on in the middle of the day - no wait at all! Dinosaur is really cool too. The line for Avatar: Flight of Passage took forever, but the ride was so cool that it almost made it worth 90 minutes of standing around. We had reservations for Tusker House dinner, figuring we should have at least one character dining experience, and it was very enjoyable. Good food and a fun atmosphere, with special shoutout to the steak, chicken, and pork. We were able to hit the Na'vi River Journey after dinner as our last ride of the day, which I felt was a really nice way to cap off our first Disney day. The bus back to ASM didn't take too long, so we hopped on another bus to Disney Springs. After a few stores, we returned to the resort and discovered the glorious chipwiches.
Second day was Magic Kingdom. MK feels so huge and so important. There is just so much to do. We got there about 15 minutes after early admission began in the morning and started the day at Space Mountain. We were able to get on quickly, within 10 minutes. We made our way through Tomorrowland, hitting the Carousel of Progress, Astro Orbiter (could've skipped that one honestly), and the Peoplemover. We decided to skip the Speedway for now, given the longer wait time and it being a fairly run-of-the-mill ride. After eating a mac-and-cheese burger from Cosmic Ray's, we made our way over to Fantasyland and jumped on It's a Small World and the Carousel. PhilharMagic was closed that day for renovations. We decided to skip Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, and Little Mermaid since the wait times were all very long and we wanted to see more of the park.
On our way to the Hall of Presidents we saw that the Haunted Mansion had a really long wait. At this point I realized the wait times were not going to be in our favor to get on most rides, so we decided to spring for Genie+ and an individal LL for Mine Train. We LL'd Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain, both of which sported wait times in excess of an hour, and felt that was worth the money. The individal LL for Mine Train was worth skipping the long line as well. In general though, I felt the app was very glitchy and the restrictions on how many rides you could book at a time or within a day weren't clearly stated anywhere. That being said, I'd buy the service again, since even skipping the lines for 3 rides streamlines your day that much more.
Afterwards we hit Tom Sawyer Island - a far cry from memories of my youth. I'm not quite sure it's worth visiting anymore. We also hit Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which is still such a great ride. Pirates had a short line so we jumped on there afterwards. Splash Mountain RULES. For some reason it was closed most of the day, but as soon as it reopened, I bought a LL pass for it. All in all, we hit more than half of the rides we were interested in, and left the rest for the second MK day we had booked. We ate dinner at the Friar's Nook and watched the fireworks from back there at the advice of a kind cast member. Disney obviously doesn't skimp on the fireworks, and there were some varieties we had never seen before. Great stuff! They were doing the late night hours that day and we didn't have a wristband, but we snuck onto the teacups anyway after the fireworks ended. Don't tell mom. Exhausted, we returned to the resort, again not a bad wait for the buses.
Third day we hit Epcot. We reserved two days for Epcot specifically for the Food and Wine Festival, and I don't regret it one bit. Every single thing we ate at Epcot was truly FANTASTIC, and my standards can be pretty high. Over our two Epcot days, we had:
Everything was surprisingly reasonably priced, and the MagicBand payment makes it really easy to get in, pay, and get your food. Lines moved quickly and all the food was super fresh and delicious. My favorites were... everything, to be honest. I don't think you can go wrong. My only regret was missing Tangierine Cafe with the kebabs.
Our first Epcot day was rather rainy. Before anything, we got on Spaceship Earth with no wait in the morning. We skipped Mission Space since we were both worried about making ourselves sick, and went to Test Track instead. Cool ride and we made the most hideous beast of a car. While in the World Showcase, we were able to do the Gran Fiesta Tour boat ride which I've always loved. Reflections of China, a very cool movie. We sat down for the Beauty and the Beast singalong, which honestly makes me a bit emotional since it was my senior year high school musical. We skipped Remy's for the first day and focused on everything else instead. We dipped into a few shops along the way. I can't say enough about how cool Mexico's indoor area is. It was rainy most of the day, and after we were full of food, we made our way back to the front of the park to do Living with the Land, Nemo, Turtle Talk, Figment, and Soarin', all of which were walk-ons. The Harmonious fireworks and water show is just fantastic as well, and looks good from virtually any angle.
Fourth day was Hollywood Studios, or as my caveman brain still thinks of it, MGM. At this point we had walked around theme parks nonstop for five full days. In the morning we hit Mickey and Minnie's, which was way more fun than I thought it'd be and well worth the wait. We made our way to Star Tours which I really enjoyed, but my fiancee was starting to feel the fatigue at this point. We hit Muppetvision figuring it'd be a good rest for us, and I thought it was pretty funny. We walked around for a bit and ate lunch at Andy's Lunch Box. My brisket melt was delicious, her turkey sandwich was good, and the "lunch box tart" was basically just a poptart on steroids. Awesome stuff. Because wait times were looking rough again, I bought Genie+ and made a reservation for Tower of Terror, as well as an individual LL for Rise of the Resistance.
We sat down for Beauty and the Beast Live, and halfway through the show started to feel just too drained to go on. After the show, we hopped the bus back to the resort and took a two-hour power nap, missing our Tower of Terror reservation. We jumped back on the bus just in time to make our dinner reservation at 50s Prime Time. What a cool concept, good food, and our waiter had a lot of fun with us. At this point we were feeling a LOT better, so we were able to get on to Slinky Dog Dash, a truly fantastic coaster. Our reservation for RotR hit, so we got on that. All I can say is: it's worth the extra money and/or the long wait time. It's quite possibly the best ride I have ever been on. We were able to basically walk on to Millennium Falcon afterwards, and the wait was not bad for Alien Swirling Saucers after that. I made a last-minute Genie+ reservation for Toy Story Mania, and because of our nap break, we missed out on Tower of Terror and Rock and Roller Coaster. I probably would've skipped the coaster but it's too bad we couldn't do the Tower. Wonderful World of Animation wasn't all that great compared to the shows at the other parks - I'd skip it next time and just keep going on rides instead.
Day 5 was Epcot day #2. We hit Disney Springs in the morning to do some souvenir shopping and got to the park around 2:30. Before leaving the hotel room I bought a LL pass for Remy's, and thank god I did, because even the virtual queue line was backed up for 90 minutes. If I had waited all day for my spot to be called, waited ANOTHER 90 minutes on top of that, and then ridden Remy's... I would've been sorely disappointed. It's a just-okay ride and way overhyped. We spent most of the day eating, taking in the park, and reriding the Gran Fiesta Tour and Space Mountain. We also sat down for the American Adventure. I was hoping to see the Canada movie too, but it was closed.
Our final day in Disney was again Magic Kingdom, and this time on a Saturday. I was worried that the crowd levels would be noticeably worse, but honestly it felt no different. The first ride we hit was Peter Pan, then Winnie the Pooh. We stopped for lunch in Liberty Square and finally got my turkey leg - delicious. Walked back to the now-open PhilharMagic, then sat down for Country Bear Jamboree. We also got to hit Monsters Laugh Floor, got some Dole Whip, did Jungle Cruise (which took FOREVER to get on), and the Magic Carpets. Dumbo was worth it in that it's a classic ride, but it's basically just a watered down Carpet ride.
We had reservations for Be Our Guest. Not only is the theming of the restaurant just fantastic, but the food is top notch. She had charcuterie, I had octopus. She had chicken, I had filet mignon. And the desserts were tasty too - so glad to finally have tried the Gray Stuff. They gave us an extra plate of it to celebrate the honeymoon. We caught the fireworks at 8 PM, landing a great spot in front of the castle, then had an extra 2 hours left before 10 PM closing. That gave us enough time to hit Little Mermaid, then cap off the trip with Space Mountain and Big Thunder back to back. Big Thunder came with one big surprise: after the ride was over, we pulled into the station... sat there... the lap bars stayed down... and the coaster went around the track one last time! Nothing like an unexpected double feature.
On the way out, we stopped for an MK chipwich. My dad mentioned before the honeymoon that he had one on our last family trip in 2009, so to me, it was a necessity. A slightly different cookie and hard ice cream as opposed to soft serve when compared to the resort. This may be heresy to some, but I think the resort's chipwich might have been a bit better than the one at MK. By the time I took the picture, it was about half an hour after the park had closed, and it was about as peaceful as Magic Kingdom will ever get.
The Magical Express picked us up at 6:30 AM the next day, we flew out of Orlando at 10 AM, and by 2 PM we were back in our home on Long Island, almost like none of it happened. Jarring to be back in the office after a full week of losing track of the real world. I guess that's what Disney can do.
A couple of miscellaneous observations:
I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, so there's probably a few edits coming later. But this is my Disney honeymoon story, and it was one I'll never forget!
