This year for our summer vacation we went to Walt Disney World in Florida and let me tell you it was hot, crowded, but still a blast. I started out the vacation in not the best mood (honestly Disney was not my first choice, I would have rather gone to the beach) but I realized that I was lucky that I was able to go. The last time I had gone was when I was about eleven, so Disney had changed a lot.
We started our vacation off with two days in Universal and it was amazing, but boy was it crowded, even with our quickpass (which we didn't have to pay for because of my injury :) ) some rides still had a half hour wait. I really enjoyed Universal (we did both parks) because of all the simulation, but if you aren't a fan of that then I would not suggest it, as there is not much else to do.
Next we went to Disney, we stayed on property so we were able to do the Extra Magic Hour and let me just tell you if you come in the summer you must use them. The Rock'n'Roller Coaster had a 130 minute wait, there were no fastpasses until 3 that afternoon and this was at 10:45 in the morning... the park opened at 10. Crazy, I know. All the rides were lots of fun, but we for sure did not get to do as much as if the we had gone in the off season. One trick my dad and I used to ride our favorite ride while waiting in line for the least amount of time was of course getting there as soon as the park opened, making a beeline for the ride, getting a fastpass and then getting in line... I really don't know why people didn't do this more. For probably the first half hour most of the popular rides had lines of fifteen minutes or less. That's how we rode Expedition Everest and the Rock'n'Roller Coaster 3 times in an hour.
Some more things that made our trip so much easier was the park hopper addition to our ticket, it does cost extra but trust me it is totally worth it. Most days we'd hit about three parks (except when we did Magic Kingdom, we spent all day there), one that had the morning extra magic hour, one at regular time, and then usually Epcot for dinner and a few rides. Another minus about the summer is that fastpasses run out, I had never heard of this happening before but for most of the major rides (i.e. Test Track, Everest) the fastpasses were gone by 3. One of the things we would not have been able to live without was the Disney app. I don't remember what the exact name was, but it is in the App and Google Play Store for free (I just searched Disney and it came up). It tells you character times, wait times, and menus for restaurants which is a total life saver.
My favorite parts of the trip was probably going to see Cirque, the water park, and the characters. One night we went to downtown and bought tickets to see Cirque du Soleil and let me tell you it was amazing, I loved our seats (we were three rows from the stage and off the right a little) but honestly it was amazing. Another fun part of the trip was the water park. We went to Blizzard Beach but I have heard great things about Typhoon Lagoon, so it's really just whatever you prefer. We were able to ride each water slide once, and go around the lazy river 3 times in a day (9-3 but we did have an hour break because of a storm). We had gone here before in the early fall and I much preferred it then. If you go during a busy time I don't think I would recommend going because honestly there was a lot of wasted time walking up and down stairs and waiting in line. Finally was the characters. You can't go to Disney and not get your picture taken with them. I got mine taken with the Princesses, Pooh and Tigger, Minnie, Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, and Donald. One thing I noticed was the only park that had Mickey and his friends dressed traditionally was Epcot (in Magic Kingdom they were dressed in Circus attire and it was poorly lit in the room).
Overall it was a fantastic trip and a great start to my summer (I'm posting this a little late).
Hope you all have great vacations too.
xx
