Annual Passholders Again? Yes, Please!

[Alex Coleman]

Annual Passholders Again? Yes, Please!

This trip came as a part of my master plan to surprise Sarah with the most epic birthday ever. Sarah and I had not been to Walt Disney World since our December 2018 trip and clearly, that is far too long! Also, we still had lingering bitterness about our previous trip. The main issue was that we were frozen the entire time! Who knew that it actually gets cold in Central Florida?! This frozen problem begot sickness, which then begot crankiness. The single objective of this trip was to obliterate these negative feelings. Needless to say, it succeeded in every single way.
The only complaint is that we had so little time! We would regularly visit Disney World on these 4-day trips when we lived in Chicago, but we have not booked one of these shorter trips since our September 2017 trip (living in California comes with higher airfare to cross the country as well as a 3-hour time difference to navigate for a long weekend trip). We are much more accustomed to our 10 or 11-day mega-trips. I know, first world problems. Don’t worry, we are WDW Annual Passholders again so we will be going back again soon!
This report will include a step-by-step look at all 11 days of our trip, including early mornings and late nights. I will also give you a brief review of all the restaurants at which we indulged, and the updated rooms at Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of pictures to go along with this report! I feel especially proud of some of these photos. I am definitely adding a handful of them to my top-10 list.
We had a great time and I am excited to share all of our adventures with you! This trip report will have several parts, so stay tuned. Click the links below for each part of the report.

• Part 1: So Much For the Grand Reveal
• Part 2: No Sleep? No Problem!
• Part 3: Just A Couple of Sneaky Snakes
• Part 4: The Passholder Life Is The Good Life
• Part 5: Run! The Rain Is Coming!

 

[Alex Coleman]

SO MUCH FOR THE GRAND REVEAL

Before we get to the meat of our trip report, I wanted to share the context about how this trip came about. I will also share a few photos that are completely unrelated to the text because the idea of a wall of text without photos sound dreadful even to me as I write this. So stay tuned for more!
It takes very little for me (and increasingly less for Sarah) to justify a trip to the World of All Things Coleman Joy as time goes along. Essentially, I am always planning another trip. Also, Sarah and I are back to not paying rent so we have much more space to justify it from a financial standpoint. With all that in mind, I decided to start looking for late-May or early-June 2019. It made it even easier because Sarah and I racked up a lot of extra income during May because we both work in higher education and that is our busy season (and with busy-ness comes overtime!).
My process usually starts with flights because those are the most marginally expensive part of each individual trip for us. Sure hotels and tickets are expensive, but the flights are really where we feel it. Coming from California is expensive! Maybe this is because the resorts are more or less the same price, but the flights change constantly. Maybe because it feels like it is a waste to pay a large portion of the vacation before and after our time in Orlando. I put a few different weekends in my Hopper app (if you aren’t using Hopper or tracking flights on Google Flights, you should be!) and waited for a deal.

Fortunately, a deal arrived! Sarah and I have found that Frontier has a redeye flight from Ontario, California to Orlando International Airport (MCO) and it is normally far less expensive than any other flight. This works great for Sarah and me because it is the only way to not waste an entire vacation day on travel.
This route opened while we were planning our December 2018 trip and I am fairly certain we will be on the exact same 11:08pm flight from Ontario to MCO until the day we die (or they cancel it, whichever comes first). Being that we were visiting for Sarah’s birthday, I asked our parents to split the cost of our flights, so we were set!

After that, we needed to look for hotel accommodations. I had already decided that it was a better deal to sign up for Annual Passports because we would be visiting during October for 10 days and then December for roughly a week. That meant that we had an excellent hotel discount at the All-Star resorts. This worked out marvelously because I was dying to sample the newly renovated rooms at Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort. We were going to Walt Disney World! I selected Fastpass+ times and booked breakfast reservations at Be Our Guest with amazing ease. This whole process is always exciting!

During this time, I was starting to get feelers out about how exactly I was going to spring this surprise on Sarah. We had previously talked about a trip over Memorial Day Weekend and we both agreed that it was outside of the realm of possibility for us. However, I would never allow that decision to get in the way of continuing to press and play to see if we could make it work.
I decided that I needed to complete a few steps before we could lock everything in.

The first task was to clear this vacation with Sarah’s supervisor. Fortunately, she is a close enough friend that I felt comfortable reaching out to her to clear up the vacation. I presented her with the idea and she agreed to clear her for vacation and to keep it a secret. This meant I could present the surprise in a way that was more fun than Sarah seeing it on her calendar and wondering why she was going to be on vacation.
The next task was to get someone to watch Mowgli, The Intentional Dog. Amazingly, the college students that I work with jumped at the opportunity to housesit so I could surprise Sarah and we could go to our happy place. So thankful for you, Alyssa! They were so excited about Sarah’s surprise (they love her far more than me and that is totally awesome!). I ran them through the plan and they all agreed to play their part by not accidentally telling her.

The last task was to figure out how I was going to make an excuse for Sarah to know that she was going somewhere, but not know where that was. I had several ideas. The first was to plan a weekend away to San Diego and the second was to plan a weekend trip and stay in a hotel close to Disneyland. The idea was to plan this weekend over our weekend away at Walt Disney World. I wanted to do this in a sneaky way that did not let Sarah in on my actual intentions.
This worked out great until Sarah insisted that she wanted to go away on her actual birthday weekend (the weekend after our trip). I presented the ideas and made the mistake of comparing the prices of vacations while she was in the room. I could have just not done it and told her it was less expensive over my desired weekend, but I didn’t. Honesty is always a mistake, clearly!

This reality meant I had two directions: be honest with her and let her in on the real surprise or “plan” that trip but just spring the surprise on her later. I had this grand idea of packing her bags for her and picking her up on the way to the airport and her not knowing about our trip until we got to the terminal.
I decided that I would go with the honesty plan again. Our MagicBands arrived in early May and I decided to present them and tell her about the trip. I opened the package and brought them out to her and handed her the box. Her reaction was calm and dismissive, so I correctly assumed that she misunderstood what was happening. I told her that these were not for the trip that she was thinking about, but for the end of May. This elicited the response I was expecting.

At first, she was incredulous and in shock. I am pretty sure I experienced the spectrum of human emotion over the next 24 hours. After all, she is much more risk-averse than I am. She can see the amount of money, but the excitement eventually burst through. She also excellently pointed out that this was also grand manipulation because we both decided that we would not go in May so I did a workaround so I didn’t need to go through her first. However, happy manipulation is good manipulation!
Throughout this time, I was laying on heavy layers of Disney music and questions about the length of time before our October trip to build up to this moment. Overall, we were both ecstatic to cut this countdown roughly in half. By the time we got through students moving out at our university, we were in full Disney mode. Every day felt like an eternity, but we finally made it to the end of our wait. We will pick up our story in Part 2, so sit back and relax. We are going on this journey together!

 

[Alex Coleman]

NO SLEEP? NO PROBLEM!

Thursday, May 30th arrived after what felt like an eternity. We waited and waited and now it was time to enjoy our vacation! We welcomed our student who was housesitting for us and gave her the lowdown about taking care of the Intentional Dog. Sarah and I tearfully bid our puppy adieu and then headed out the door. Our drive to Ontario International Airport (ONT) was incredibly smooth and traffic-free. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to make our flight.
Speaking of Ontario, I cannot speak highly enough about this airport. Sarah and I used this as our home base before we moved to Chicago because it was closer to our old school and we both love it. Even though flights from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) tend to be cheaper, I would rather fly out of Ontario every day of the week.

There is almost never traffic navigating ONT, whereas you can sit in traffic getting into and out of LAX for what feels like an eternity. The Economy Lot is walking distance to the terminal (something that is not remotely true at LAX). This lot also costs $13 per day. Sure, LAX is $12 but it is very far away. Also, we got to our gate after waiting literally no time in the TSA queue. We do have TSA Pre-Check, which helps, but still that lack of wait is so helpful. We could arrive at this airport 45 minutes before our flight with Pre-Check and get to the gate before boarding. Go, ONT, Go! 10/10 recommend.
While we waited at the gate, I took a sleep aid to prepare for our redeye flight on Frontier. We watched Chernobyl on HBO (another 10/10 recommend) while waiting at the gate, and then boarded the mostly-full flight to Orlando.

Our travel experience was lovely and pain-free up until we boarded our flight. I know that Frontier has cheap and convenient flights for our particular purposes, but I think we are shaving years off our lives because of this airline.

First, we were not going to pay for an extra bag each way for a 4-day vacation so we needed to load all our belongings into our “personal items” aka backpacks for Sarah and I. I actually had a thought at one point during the flight that there was literally no point in not bringing a carry-on. We do not go to the check-in desk because we do online check-in.
I even double-checked during the boarding process to see if there was anything that stated on their computer whether we had paid for a carry-on or not and nothing came up. Also, I always put my bag up in the overhead bins because there is always space on these budget airlines and I am almost 6’3”.

I am not risk-averse so I may just risk bringing a carry-on bag in the future and paying for it at the gate if they actually, by some miracle, check. If anyone has any insight into this policy and how they actually enforce it, please do comment! I am convinced that it is a sham.
Now that we were on the plane and seated, our misery only just began. The sleeping pill did its best, but there is only so much you can do to battle against the adversary which is the Frontier flying experience. I took a series of micro-naps which were interrupted by extreme discomfort.
The problems are numerous. The first problem is that the seats do not recline even a little bit. Speaking of the seats, they are essentially rental plastic folding chairs that are screwed into the ground. They are pieces of hard plastic with a small layer of leather wrapped around the outside to make you feel like they are more than horrible.
If that all wasn’t enough, they give you the ultimate insult by giving you the world’s smallest tray table. I regularly use my tray table because I am either editing photos on the plane or watching a movie on my laptop and these wafer-sized contraptions only remind you of how little they care about you as a discount flyer. The most maddening thing is that I will continue to come back to this airline over and over because of the convenience. I guess that shows how much I value our time at Walt Disney World!

By the time we landed, we were both sore but hopeful for the future. Sarah decided that after her experience with sleeping medications during our December 2018 trip it was not a good idea to use them this go around. This meant that she was far less drowsy as we grabbed Chick-fil-A in the food court and then headed onto Disney’s Magical Express to our resort.
Ok, so my rants at the beginning of the article took up a decent amount of real estate. I am going to fly through our time visiting the parks quickly and include lots of pictures. We started by grabbing our Annual Passports from the ticket counter and entering the parks (tears of joy may have been included).

Then we headed over to Na’vi River Journey to sing with the Shaman of Songs and float through Pandora.

Next, we wandered around a surprisingly empty park. Like really, really empty. Like creepy empty.

Then we headed over to DINOSAUR to see Mrs. Huxtable and our dino friends. Sarah and I took some goofball pictures too! (Check the shirts!)

We grabbed our dino and then headed over to Everest, but it was down temporarily. By the time we were through, the jetlag was setting in. Sarah needed to rage against the dying of our light so we grabbed Starbucks from Creature Comforts.

We then headed over to Africa for our Fastpass+ return time for Kilimanjaro Safaris. After we were done, we grabbed lunch at Harambe Village Market. I wanted to go back and review this restaurant because it had been a while. There will be a full review coming up soon, but the gist is that it is not the best quick service in Animal Kingdom. The Rib Bowl that I ordered had interesting spice on it but it was not as good as Flame Tree Barbecue.

After we were done, we headed back to our resort because our room was ready. Sarah and I arrived in our renovated room and were incredibly satisfied. Similarly to our Disney’s Pop Century Resort Review, this new direction is fantastic. The rooms were disgusting and depressing before and now they are crisp, clean and efficient. Check out our Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort Review for more on our thoughts about the entire resort.

We headed to the pool and then napped for a bit. Sarah and I shook off a bit of the tiredness and we headed back to AK for Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo the Musical. Sarah also had some yummy Mac & Cheese from Eight Spoon Cafe before we went on Expedition Everest.

We also had an AMAZING cookie sandwich from Dino-Bite Snacks. The cookies were soft and the strawberry ice cream was delicious. Not to mention it was enormous! You should get this!

We were out of new things that we wanted to do before our evening of Rivers of Light: We Are One and Avatar Flight of Passage. I decided that it would be fun to go over to Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort to check on the progress of the Gran Destino Tower. Overall, the resort looks great and I am looking forward to it being open. It feels a bit jarring to have a massive tower in the middle of a Moderate resort, but it all looks nice.

After we were done exploring, we headed over to Disney Springs because we wanted to try The Polite Pig. Unfortunately, the line was massive and we wanted to get back for Rivers of Light: We Are One, so we decided to take an Uber back to AK. I took some photos of the Tree of Life and then we headed to Pandora for Flight of Passage.

I took some more pictures as we ventured to Rivers of Light.

We finished our park touring night with the incredibly terrible show. I was so upset because the one positive from the show was the score and they dismantled it in favor of intellectual property. Sarah agreed that it was not as good, but she is not nearly as dramatic as I am, and she is won over easily by anything intellectual-property-related. We headed back to the hotel room and Sarah continued to work until late into the night. However, this is roughly the longest report ever so I am going to pick it up in Part 3!

 

[Alex Coleman]

JUST A COUPLE OF SNEAKY SNAKES

We pick up our story at roughly 3am on our first night at Walt Disney World. This was the time that Sarah was done working. She was pushing for a promotion with her side hustle (soon to be her main hustle), Arbonne, and she and her team needed to sell a lot of products in order to make her promotion happen. Amazingly, she did it! She killed it, and we were both asleep by about 3:30am. That is rarely a recipe for success at Disney World. We went to bed with full awareness that our 6:30am wake-up time would be incredibly painful.
After our brief nap, I rolled out of bed and dragged Sarah’s sleepy body out with me. We struggled through getting ready and zombie crawled to the bus depot. Sarah injected some coffee into her veins while we drove to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We arrived and walked through the excellent new transportation hub at Hollywood Studios. It really is a MASSIVE improvement over the previous system, and it is a MONUMENTAL improvement over the temporary fix and half marathon to the front gates that we encountered on our December 2018 trip.

Sarah and I arrived at Hollywood Boulevard ready to get in line for rope drop. We knew that we would need to be there really early if we wanted to actually make it to Slinky Dog Dash with any semblance of a chance for other attractions at the Studios.
However, we were disappointed to find a massive crowd already. We started meandering to the left side of the crowd and a Cast Member asked us if we were there for Hollywood & Vine breakfast. I am of the opinion you should always say yes if a CM asks you something like this (and I have questionable character) so I said yes and she pointed us to the left and past the crowd to Echo Lake.

What we found was that we were the first people in the crowd on that side to rope drop and head to Toy Story Land. Sarah and I were at the very front of the crowd and waited about 4 minutes for Slink. Moral of the story is: don’t hate the player, hate the game!

After we were done, we headed over to Alien Swirling Saucers and spun ourselves to death.

We wanted to go over and experience the excellent Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (it is one of the few attractions that we genuinely miss at Disneyland), but the posted wait time was 80 minutes. Sarah and I do not visit Disney World multiple times a year to wait that long for an attraction! Instead, we watched Lightning McQueen fart.

On our way out, we saw Captain Phasma and some Stormtroopers.

Sarah and I exited the Studios and embarked upon one of our favorite WDW pastimes: walking between DHS and Epcot. We walked slowly and decided it was time for a quick refreshing drink at BoardWalk. I navigated the massive crowd waiting for their caffeine and sweet treats and got us water.

After we found our way through the current construction outside of the International Gateway, it was time to check out some topiaries and eat some food! Here are some photos of the prior:

Sarah and I were both looking forward to snacking around the world using all our Disney Dining Plan snack credits at Epcot. Unfortunately, we were pretty disappointed by the selection of food we tried.
We started in Italy with an easy win. Sarah got Tri-Colored Cheese Tortellini, Sage Butter and Chicken Veloute which was good, but soaked in a pool of the sage butter sauce. We accompanied our savory treat with some sweet Zeppole: Ricotta Cheese Fritters, Powdered sugar, Raspberry Sauce and Chocolate-hazelnut Drizzle which was also good, but inconsistently cooked.

We then moved to China and that was a horror show. The Szechuan Spicy Red-braised Beef Shank over Rice was tender and flavorful, but the aftertaste was really strange. Sarah also ordered House-made Crab and Cheese Wontons (she LOVES crab wontons). She reported back that they were “just okay” and left quite a lingering taste.

We finished with a double-dip at The Citrus Blossom and The Honey Bee-stro. Sarah and I were both really excited about the Lobster Tail with Meyer Lemon Emulsion and Grilled Lemon. We should have known better! $8 lobster will always be a mistake! It was so rubbery that we had to sincerely struggle just to take bites of it.
However, the Local Wildflower Honey-mascarpone Cheesecake with Orange Blossom Honey Ice Cream garnished with Fennel Pollen Meringue Kisses and Petite Lavender Shoots was incredible. The flavors were all so subtle, it had multiple different textures, and it was refreshing on a hot, Central Florida day.

After we were done, it was time for some serious napping. We headed to the pool and then crashed for about 3 hours. Sarah and I only emerged in time to go get dinner and then head back to Hollywood Studios for nighttime entertainment.
We arrived back at Epcot and headed to Spaceship Earth. Every time I experience this attraction I fall more in love. I find it hard to think about another attraction that captures the ethos of a park quite as much as Epcot’s big ball. It also doesn’t hurt to have Dame Judi Dench narrating.

Sunshine Seasons for dinner. This is our second time eating here and I am always impressed. Sarah ordered the Slow-Roasted Pork Loin and I wanted to order from the Asian Noodle Shop. However, it was not open at the time we arrived. I was not able to get the Mongolian Beef, so I settled for the Oak-grilled Rotisserie Chicken. Both of our dishes were excellent. I will be updating our restaurant review for Sunshine soon!

After we were done, we emerged to the beautiful sunset of our dreams. Instead of letting words get in the way of a good story, I am just going to show you!

Oh, it was also beautiful at the Studios!

After I was done nerding-out over the sunset, it was time for the new Wonderful World of Animation show. Sarah and I sat and listened to a Cast Member explain the origin of the Family Picture at Hollywood Studios. If you are interested, it is a pretty cool story. Give it a Google! We sat and watched the show and were massively impressed. Granted, Sarah and I are the exact audience that this show is aimed at. We are the target demographic, as we love Disney animation so much.
I get that other people may not be in favor of just another intellectual property projection show, but those people are just wrong! This is an excellent show that walks guests through the various motifs that wind themselves through Disney animation (friendship, love, villainy, etc.). The projections are crisp and come from a broad spectrum of the Disney animation experience. Sarah and I both found ourselves leaning over and exclaiming something like, “I haven’t seen that movie in forever, we need to watch it again!”

If this show does one thing, it makes the Coleman family want to buy the Disney Plus subscription even more. Maybe that was the point! After the show, we were exhausted so we decided to pack it in rather than watch Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular. We arrived at the bus depot and it was a ghost town. Turns out, when the park is full of people watching various nighttime spectaculars there are not very long lines for transportation. Who knew!

We got on our bus back to Disney’s All-Star Movies and headed to bed. We were both beat and we had an early morning (because we always do!). Off to Magic Kingdom tomorrow!

 

[LeiaIsAPrincess2]

What a fun surprise for Sarah! I'm really glad I didn't book Frontier after your review, I'm always skeptical of budget airlines. It otherwise looks like a great start to your trip!

 

[Alex Coleman]

What a fun surprise for Sarah! I'm really glad I didn't book Frontier after your review, I'm always skeptical of budget airlines. It otherwise looks like a great start to your trip!

I used to think that Frontier was a nice middle ground between Spirit and the other airlines. However, they have continued to cut corners and it has become almost unliveable. It was an amazing trip!

 

[Alex Coleman]

THE PASSHOLDER LIFE IS THE GOOD LIFE

We woke up early on this Sunday morning and were ready to head to the Magic Kingdom for our early breakfast reservation at Be Our Guest. This was an especially important day because we would be celebrating Sarah’s birthday (ok, sure, her birthday wasn’t for another week but we needed to celebrate fully)! She donned her Little Mermaid Mickey ears and we wandered out the door.
Sarah grabbed coffee and I filled our excellent Osprey reservoir with water because it was going to be a scorcher. We walked to the bus and then headed out to the Magic Kingdom. When we arrived around 7:30am, there was a Photopass photographer just waiting to get a picture of us! I don’t love the way that Disney does these pictures (yes, I am a massive photography snob), but it had Peter Pan in it so it’s fine.

Our dining reservation was not until 8:30am so we had some time to kill. Sarah’s only demand for her birthday was that she wanted to take pictures. I happily obliged! We started on the grass in the Hub and I briefly forgot how to frame a picture to make sure the (second) most important part of the picture (Cinderella’s Castle) was actually visible.

However, we did manage to get another few shots in front of the castle that were excellent.

After we were done, we wandered towards Be Our Guest and grabbed some shots of Sarah in front of her favorite Disney princess with her AWESOME retro Mermaid shirt.

After Sarah was satisfied with her photo shoot, we headed to Be Our Guest and walked in a couple of minutes before our reservation time. We grabbed a table in the Library (hot tip: great lighting in this room for food photos, but a terrible amount of noise) and sat down for our breakfast.

Sarah had the usual Croque Madame and I had the Open-Faced Bacon and Egg Sandwich. We split the pastries and Sarah got a Peach Bellini and I got the Schöfferhofer Pink Grapefruit Hefeweizen for the last time (turns out that 8:30am is not a great time for beer).

I won’t go into a full review (go check out our full review here!), but it is still a good use of dining plan credit because of the early access. After our breakfast, we headed to Under the Sea – Journey of the Little Mermaid for more joy for Sarah Coleman.
We tackled a few more attractions (Dumbo and Haunted Mansion, to be more specific) before we headed for Sarah’s not-so-laughin’ place. As you can tell, Sarah did not want to go on Splash Mountain.

I really love this attraction at Magic Kingdom. I rarely get to actually go on it because Sarah (probably realistically) does not want to destroy her hair and outfit regularly. However, it is an excellent attraction.

Fortunately, we had our handy ponchos so she escaped perfectly dry!

The humidity was surprisingly low so it literally felt like being in an oven (or Palm Springs). That made watching Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire miserable but dried our clothes very quickly. We decided against watching the entire show. Instead, we enjoyed an incredibly pleasant journey around Tomorrowland on the PeopleMover.

After our journey was done, it was time for a nap so Sarah and I headed to Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress. This is an attraction that has significantly grown on Sarah and I (the history alone makes it worth a visit). However, we were not in a place to enjoy it because we were so exhausted.

We headed back to our resort for some much-needed pool and nap time.
After we were done, we wanted to kill some time Annual Passholder style. One thing we have learned from our over-600 visits to the Disneyland Resort is that there is PLENTY to do at Disney Parks without stepping foot in a theme park.
Unfortunately, I uncharacteristically left my DSLR camera back in our room! This was disappointing as a travel blogger but allowed me some space to see this experience differently. I used my phone camera as we resort-hopped around Seven Seas Lagoon. We wanted to take the Monorail, but it was closed. Sarah and I decided to take the massive ferry boat across the lagoon.
We walked over to Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort and planted ourselves inside at Capt. Cook’s.
Sarah and I had eaten here in the past and loved it. Sarah was not feeling very well (because she gets horrible heat stroke) so she only ate about half of her delicious Pork Fried Rice.
I was actually hungry and the Pan Asian Noodles and Vegetables with Shrimp sounded yummy. Unfortunately, they were underwhelming. The flavor was fine, but it was really heavy on the veggies and was WAY oversaturated with sauce.

I recovered from eating so many vegetables by wandering around Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa. We ended up over on the Disney Vacation Club side and Sarah committed her life to owning at this resort simply because of these penguins. Let’s be real, it is the right choice. Her excitement about the resort died down quickly when she realized there is not a great resort view on the DVC side. Bay Lake Tower it is, then!

After we rested a bit, we took the smaller boat back to MK. We jumped on Peter Pan and then watched Mickey’s PhilharMagic with the worst person ever. They were one of those people who stop in the middle of the row (hot tip: don’t be that person!). They also tweeted, texted, Snapchatted with the flash, and talked on the phone during the short show. Deplorable behavior!
After the show, I headed over to Storybook Treats for the delicious Peter Pan Float. I enjoyed my cold and refreshing treat while I watched the Seven Dwarfs cars go by.

Sarah and I were having a lovely afternoon so we decided to go back to resort-hopping. We jumped on another boat back to the Poly. Sarah and I settled into a chair at Trader Sam’s and sipped on some delicious beverages. This was a delightful evening. The sun was setting which was beautiful and Sarah and I were so happy to be Passholders again.

The beauty of being an Annual Passholder is that you never feel like you need to rush! We just sipped the evening away and talked about how happy we were. It is a beautiful thing!

After we were ready to head back to MK, it was time for Happily Ever After. We wandered through Main Street, USA and ended up in almost a perfect spot. There is a slight rise where Main Street meets the Hub and we were just to the right of center. We sang along with the show and were once again reminded how much we love Walt Disney World.
After we were done, I decided we would knock out a few more attractions. We used our Fastpass+ return time for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and then headed over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
Sarah really wanted to see the projection show Once Upon a Time, but it was not on the schedule on the My Disney Experience app. She was sad that we could see the show happening over our shoulders as we got in the queue for Big Thunder. C’mon, Disney!
We made up for it by going on Mermaid for the third time that day and then getting ice cream from Plaza Inn.

After we were done, it was time for Astro Orbiter because we had never experienced this attraction at WDW. After we were done, we headed back to our resort to prepare for leaving the next day. So sad!