Finally got to go! Family trip - parents & 3 adult kiddos

[TexanInBrazilandBackAgain]

Okay, finally! We have been planning this trip and rescheduling it since May 2019. That got bumped to December 2019. Then to May 2020, but then, Covid. So then Dec 2021, but then, we got Covid. So finally now, May 2022, we just got back. yay!!

First up -- we had to call and get our expired, unused tickets applied to the purchase of new tickets. Easy-peasy once I got a person on the phone. We upgraded from a 3-day ticket to a 4-day ticket (non park hopper) and paid the difference. Done!

Our itinerary was:
Thurs May 12 -- Animal Kingdom
Friday May 13 -- Hollywood Studios
Saturday May 14 -- Magic Kingdom
Sunday May 15 -- Epcot

Per the suggestion/tip of the cast member on the phone that helped with the tickets, we stalked Oga Cantina reservations and then rearranged our park days to accommodate that once we got it. As we did not do any of this until about 3 weeks before our trip, we felt pretty fortunate to get the reservation at all, but we got it! yay!

We did not do Park Hopper, LL, or Genie+ at all -- with 5 people, it just wasn't feasible. We were prepared for waits in line &/or skipping stuff; as it turned out, we didn't have more than an hour wait for things, nor did we have to miss anything we had on our "must do" list. We did skip some of our "would be nice, but not necessary" stuff. We did take midday breaks each day except for Thursday/Animal Kingdom. We stayed off-site, but close (Crestwynd Bay Townhomes, via an AirBnB rental).

We did use Genie, primarily for the tip board to check wait times, and largely disregarded the order/arrangement that Genie laid out for us. It kept adding things like sit-down lunches vs. mobile ordering, or character things we weren't interested in, or shows we didn't ask to do, etc. so rather than follow all of that we just looked for what had the shortest wait and headed there.

Also used the app for mobile ordering, and love the "order food" feature that lets you select to mobile order *then* choose a place -- it showed all of the pick-up time options, and we'd just scroll to find the soonest time, open that menu, place our order, head that way, tap "here" on the way over and by the time we got there, our food would be ready to pick up. We were able to get indoor seating each place, as well. We brought water bottles and refilled them in the water fountains.

Day-by-Day reports below as replies to this thread, broken down by park.

 

[TexanInBrazilandBackAgain]

Animal Kingdom -- Thursday, May 12

We arrived about an hour or so after park open, and left before closing (we'd flown in the night before, arriving at our lodging about 1 a.m., so we were all pretty beat....).

We managed to do:
Avatar Flight of Passage
train over to Conservation Station, to do the Animation Experience/lesson/class
walk through the Tree of Life trail
walk through the Gorilla Encounter trail, spending a lot of time in the bird area
watch the Bird Show
food from a kiosk/bakery/coffee place (I do not recall the name, but we got breakfast and lunch there)
rode Expedition Everest
dinner reservation (early) at Tiffin's Restaurant

The longest wait was Avatar, and it was about 50 minutes or so, maybe less. Huge hit; we'd have ridden again if we'd not been so tired.

If you've never done the Animation Experience, I highly recommend it. Super fun; we drew Turk, from Tarzan, but the drawing changes throughout the day. Several in our group wanted to go back and do another one, but got vetoed in favor of doing other things instead.

Tiffin's was pricey, which we knew, but delicious. At the end of the trip, my husband admitted the best food he had on the entire trip (in park or out of it) was the shrimp & grits from Tiffin's. Delicious! I had the charred octopus and the lobster mac & cheese; one son had the chicken dish, another also had shrimp & grits, and one had the whole fish. That was a dish heavy on presentation, but not really a large portion b/c the curved presentation of the fish made it harder to get the meat off the fish. Good, but difficult.

All in all, good trip, good day.

 

[TexanInBrazilandBackAgain]

Hollywood Studios -- Friday, May 13

We did:
Oga's Cantina
Smuggler's Run (3 times)
Rise of the Resistance
Star Tours
Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Train
Indiana Jones
lunch in the park


Arrived at park opening/"rope drop" because our Oga's Cantinas reservations were 8:40 a.m.; went home midday; returned for the evening - stayed till closing(ish)

Oga's Cantina -- not to be missed. Holy cow, it was amazing. I was surprised that we were seated at a shared table; there are 5 of us, we shared an elongated U-shaped booth with another party of 3 or 4, plus a party of 2 at the outside barstools at the table. So, that was surprising, but fine. The drinks were good - we got non-alcoholic juices, blue milk, etc. due to the hour. Mine had boba pearls in it, which got trapped by the ice in the drink, which was disappointing but the waitress/cast member brought me a spoon to get them out (I wish I'd said something sooner). But the experience was incredible.

From there, we rode Millennium Falcon/Smuggler's Run -- 1st time through, we had a 40 minute wait. The line, of course, keeps you interested and we were just in awe of all the scenery, theming, etc. so it didn't feel that long. The ride of course was awesome; we returned 2 more times that afternoon, so everyone in our party could experience each different role (those that wanted to swap).

After our first run through there, we wandered a bit. Saw Storm Troopers and took our picture there. Saw Rey & Chewie by their ship, took our picture there. Rise of the Resistance was down for maintenance much of the morning, so we headed towards Star Tours, discovered Smuggler's Run had only a 50 minute wait, returned to it instead.....decided we weren't moving so left to do Star Tours after all and passed by Rise just as it was coming back online, so jumped in line for that. Walked pretty near the front/ish, it seemed, and waited a little under an hour which, considering we didn't do LL or G+, pretty dang good luck.

So.Freaking.Worth It. If you haven't ridden/experienced it.....it's hard to describe. Fully immersive experience, absolutely incredible. Was a little unsettling for our anxiety-ridden son, so if anyone in your group struggles with that, maybe find out all you can/talk to someone who knows so you/they know what to expect. It would have helped our son a lot had we had any kind of clue to brief him ahead of time. It was incredible, though, and worth the wait.

From there we got lunch, watched Indiana Jones, took our midday break and then returned later.

When we returned, we did Star Tours, which I could see would have been really a great ride back in the day. Or if we'd ridden it first. After the newer stuff it was kind of a let down. But, hey, 5 min wait, so that was fine.

After that, Smuggler's Run had a 30 minute wait, so we headed back over there and rode it 2 more times in a row. We noticed the scores on the 2nd pass, so the 3rd pass was mainly to improve our score. Such a fun ride!

After that, we went to Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railroad, which was honestly pretty incredible and quickly jumped to everyone's Top 5 at least (and stayed there) (and some of our lists had it on the top three). So sweet, and nostalgic, and so well done, and just magical. Everyone in the group loved it (mom & dad in our mid-40s, "kids" ages 17, 21, and 24).

We made our way out w/o waiting for fireworks and called it a night after that.

 

[TexanInBrazilandBackAgain]

Magic Kingdom -- Saturday May 14

This was rearranged to accommodate that my husband wanted to go to a fencing class on Monday night, and we had a private tour of Raymond James stadium in Tampa Bay on Tuesday, leaving us Sat/Sun for MK and Epcot. I thought it would be awful - it wasn't. I don't know what later in May would be like, but I expected much larger crowds.

We did:
Jungle Cruise
Pirates of the Caribbean
Big Thunder Mountain
Haunted Mansion
Small World
Carousel
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
Space Mountain
Winnie the Pooh
Space Mountain
closing fireworks
lunch in the park

So, we started off with Jungle Cruise, which had a long line even right away. Or, a medium line, but super crowded feeling b/c of being an old-school style line. The anxiety ridden 21 yr old did not love the crowds, so again, if that bugs anyone in your group....keep it in mind. Very close quarters in line for this one. But, once on, he relaxed, the ride was as cheesy and fun as I remembered, and we're all glad we went (my 2nd trip, 1st time being 30 yrs ago; everyone else's 1st time).

I don't recall the order of everything else, but nothing had a longer wait than 45 mins even on a Saturday. We used the Genie to check wait times and head to the next thing, whatever had the shortest wait at that time. So, we'd ride something, check Genie, head off to another thing. Probably lots more walking that way than if we'd let the Genie arrange the day, but we'd find stuff with a 30 minute wait now vs. Genie suggesting it for later with a 60 minute wait. We took the walking.

We did Pooh and Seven Dwarfs right after fireworks/before park closing (it closed at 11:30 that night) and easily fit both in. Winnie the Pooh was way too rushed of a ride; it wanted to be a good, nostalgic, sweet ride.....but it did not give you enough time to enjoy/savor it, the way Mickey & Minnie did the night before. That was the only ride that disappointed here, though.

Small World we caught right on the way out and it was just about empty. the kids fussed some, complained, but in the end everyone admitted enjoying it.

 

[TexanInBrazilandBackAgain]

Epcot -- Sunday, May 15

We did:
Journey into Imagination w/Figment
Spaceship Earth
Mission: Space (green/Earth side)
Test Track
Soarin
ate our way around Flower & Garden Festival Street Fair food

Again, arrived later (about 10), left midday, came back around 4-ish, stayed until 9:00/ish when the lightning storm hit/park closing. We kept postponing Ratatouille, and so never got to do it, but no one was really "must do" about that anyway.

Hit Spaceship Earth on the way in, and everyone enjoyed it. Did not realize it's 2 to a pod only, so 1 of us was single for it. Also, my young adult kids wear their masks everywhere, so on the end when it does your future for you and puts your face in, not enough of their face was clear, so no face. Just in case anyone else has that issue/wants to know that.

Figment was a nostalgia thing for me, the family was unimpressed. I didn't care, it was awesome, I adore Figment, so that was fine. Joy was there (from Inside Out) doing a meet & greet as we exited, so that was nice; I got to hug her & say hi.

Mission: Space was another we could have skipped; we are all too motion-sensitive to do the Orange/Mars side, but the Earth side is way tamer than even our "needs everything tame" rider needs. So, we could have skipped that. Live & learn.

Test Track was super fun; even our "needs everything tame" person said he'd have ridden again if we'd stayed later/had time/the rain hadn't closed it. Very cool being able to compare our stats to one another.

Soarin' was great; we originally were going to skip it, but we had time, so off we went. They did rush unloading/loading, so as we were getting off, new people were getting on, and the cast members kind of barked orders at redirecting us from one direction to another to allow for the folks coming on, which was kind of annoying. Other than that, though, it was a lot of fun.

The food in the street fair/festival kiosks was fantastic. We hit probably 5 or 6 spots, tried 2-3 dishes from each one, never had more than about a 5 minute wait except for one spot (we split up there, 1 waiting there and the rest heading up to the next spot to get that order going and we met in the middle at a table). Everything we tried was delicious. I look forward to a return trip sometime and trying the regular Epcot restaurants, but since we were there during the festival I really wanted to just eat that. We did, and it was plenty of food.

This is where the rain hit us, so we skipped Ratatouille (which surged to a 95+ minute wait) and headed out, battling a drizzle that turned to a massive downpour, lightning, water accumulation, the parking lot lights flashed off/back on, etc. We were seriously drenched, but it was a fun ending to a fun trip.

Can't wait to go back one day!