WDW Trip Day Four: HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Our final day of our amazing trip ended in my home park! I only had about two hours here, because I had to catch the bus back to the hotel at 1:15pm. Luckily there's not a WHOLE lot to do in Studios right now, especially since Sarah doesn't do Rockin' Rollercoaster OR Tower of Terror! So we did Star Tours, then went and saw Beauty and the Beast show (which I had never seen before, but always meant to go see). It was super cute but I must admit that I prefer Disneyland's Aladdin! SIDE NOTE: SO MAD THEY'RE TAKING IT AWAY. It's seriously so good!! And there is no need to put in ANOTHER Frozen show, there are plenty already. Anyway, getting sidetracked. Well we got to go visit my old restaurant which was super fun, I got to see an old coordinator, bartender, and three of my old coworkers! One of them is now a coordinator which is great, she deserves it! I tried a pina colada for the first time, and was surprisingly disappointed. I think I prefer the virgin version hahaha! Sweet sugary drinks just don't do it for me.

Well I had a 5:15pm flight home, and had such a fun flight! I took a short nap in the beginning, but for the next 3 hours ended up playing with the little girl next to me. She was in first grade and wanted me to help her with her homework, then play makeup games on her iPad with her, then play with her fortune teller (remember those?! "Pick a color. Y-E-L-L-O-W. Now pick a number..."). She was SO darling, telling me all the characters she got to meet in Disney World. Her grandma was also in our row and was a really neat person, she grew up in Holland. So they were incredibly fun to sit with. The little girl's name was Annika, and at the end of the flight she goes "maybe next time I go to Disney World, we can meet up in Hollywood Studios and meet Baymax". And as if that wasn't cute enough she then says "well I hope you're on my next flight, this was fun!". OK STOP. So cute. It was her first flight ever, to and from Orlando. Well turns out her and her grandma live in Fort Collins too! They were both extremely sweet and made the flight fly by. And like that, my vacation was over :( I got home around 10:30pm, then had to be up the next morning for my 8am class. Had class from 8am to 1:30pm, then work from 2pm to 8:30pm. I just got off work so I'm now FINALLY home. It's been a very very very long day. I wish I was back at Disney World :( But let's be honest, I'll be back there again soon enough ;)

So weird without the hat :(

The worst part of the whole trip, besides leaving (obviously), and not being able to use my cast discount, was not having our whole apartment there with us. I've been lucky enough to be able to see 4 of my 5 other roommates in the 10 months since our program ended, but it would be so amazing to be able to meet up in our old home <3 LOVE YOU ALL! #26301

WDW Trip Day Three: ANIMAL KINGDOM AND MICKEY'S NOT SO SCARY HALLOWEEN PARTY!!

This morning we were supposed to meet at DAK at 11am, but her brother slept through his alarm and ended up showing up at 12:15. We headed to Festival of the Lion King, which made me emotional for some reason haha but I love that show! We were in the giraffe section. Then we went to Dinosaur to (barely) catch our FastPasses, and I have to say that ride is scarier than I remember. After Dinosaur we went straight to our FastPasses at Expedition Everest, which is always SO much fun. We got Yak and Yeti quick service for lunch (I got chicken fried rice), then went to the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail to see the gorillas, they're so funny. One of the gorillas was sitting in a corner, and another (that looked like a teenager) came over and pinched her butt then ran away hahahaha. Fast forward 5 minutes and the same gorilla chucks a bucket at her. These animals are fantastic. Well we went to our FastPasses at Kilimanjaro Safari then headed out back to the hotel. Oh, and I ran into my RA from freshman year at Colorado State University who is now doing the Disney College Program as a Photopass Photographer which is crazy. Small world?

Cheyenne, my freshman RA!

We got ready for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP) then headed to the park at 7pm. I went as Elsa on a Budget, and Sarah was Hallie Golighty from Breakfast at Tiffany's. This night was probably the highlight of the vacation, SO fun. All wait times were crazy short! The first thing we did was take castle pictures, then go get Pixie Dusted at Sir Mickey's for the FIRST TIME EVER.

We waited like 10 minutes to meet Cinderella and Rapunzel, and maybe 20 minutes to meet Snow White.

We then waited by Walt in front of the castle for the Hocus Pocus Villain show WHICH WAS SO GOOD, then Celebrate the Magic, and Wishes. They were all back to back which was great. The fireworks were spectacular, and Celebrate the Magic is always wonderful, but it's the normal one.

After those shows we rode Haunted Mansion, then headed over to Frontierland for the Halloween Parade (which was also really cool, the grave diggers are AWESOME). On our way to the parade we ran into the Evil Queen from Snow White who randomly came up to us and touched our faces hahaha kinda freaky, but some great pictures came out of it!

Finally we hit up all the short ride lines! We waited 35 minutes for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which is CRAZY short for that attraction. I think we nailed our picture poses.

We also walked right on to Space Mountain, and I did a little better with this pose.

That was our last attraction of the night because the park closed at midnight, and we walked on at 11:55pm. Seriously the best night ever. We also Trick-Or-Treated but only one location.

WDW Trip Day Two: MAGIC KINGDOM!!

Let's be honest here, this is the day I was really looking forward to. We got to the park around 11am, and stayed until like 11:30pm. And this day FLEW by, it was crazy!! We rode Space Mountain, and I failed at the photo. This is a common occurrence with me, I always look the wrong direction.

We also rode the Little Mermaid ride, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Teacups, Astro Orbiter, Big Thunder, and went to the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor and Mickey's Philharmagic. This was our first time on Astro Orbiter and we had to squish into this tiny little space shuttle haha. But one of the Cast Members was from New Zealand so that was exciting! And Sarah's brother got on the big screen at the Laugh Floor! If you've seen the show you know that they call someone out to dance, and he got called out! But he was lame and didn't dance. I almost forgot! The AMAZING cast member let us go through the FastPass line because Sarah was wearing her Disney Alumni shirt, so that was really special for us :) Shoutout to the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor CM! Wish we had written down his name.

I got to see my old coworker (from SCC) Mckenzie who now works at the Haunted Mansion!

We also got to meet Ariel, she's always so much fun to chat with :)

We of course got LeFou's Brew, and kids chicken nugget meals for every meal ;) Also, I got an adorable white V-neck shirt that has Walt and Mickey on Main Street <3

We ended the night with Celebrate the Magic and Wishes, and of course I cried. Celebrate the Magic just always gets to me haha <3 We walked around some more after Wishes then headed back to the hotel! And can I just rant for a second? PEOPLE THAT VIDEOTAPE FIREWORKS WITH THE VIDEO LIGHT ON. 1. What happened to enjoying the moment?! You're spending the entire show watching your phone screen to make sure you have a good shot, if you're going to do that just go watch it on YouTube! 2. It is SO distracting to see those blinding white lights that people use for videotaping at night. Also 50% of people are videotaping and you're surrounded by little phone screens which is also distracting. 3. Parents completely ignore their kids so they can videotape. Seriously?! Ok. Rant over. Besides that irritating fact, it was an absolutely PERFECT day.

WDW Trip Day One: EPCOT!!

My Disney World birthday trip started with a red eye flight on Thursday night. My flight left out of Denver at 11:50pm and arrived in Orlando at 5:25am. I took the Magical Express to All Star Movies Resort and arrived there around 6:15am. It was obviously too early to get into my room so I sat in the dining hall and played on my laptop until I figured out I left my phone on the bus. Unfortunately I had to wait all day to get my phone back, a very stressful ordeal, but luckily they had it in the airport office and brought it to my room that night! I stayed in the hotel until 10:30am and went to go meet up with Sarah's brother Josh to go into the parks. I was dumb and didn't pack summer clothes in my carry on bag, so I had the joy of wearing my airport clothes (leggings and a long sleeve shirt!) to the parks. I just rolled them up, but still, I was melting in the mid 80's degree weather.

Well I hung out with Josh until Sarah got in at around 12:30. It was one of my FAVORITE events of the year...Food & Wine Festival!! YAY!! And I was finally legal to try some drinks :) I got apple ice wine from Canada (I think), a cider flight from Farm Fresh that included pumpkin hard cider, elderberry, raspberry, and dry pear. My favorite was the dry pear hard cider, but the pumpkin was interesting and the apple ice wine was pretty good! I also tried melon shave ice from Japan, the Kalua pork slider from Hawaii, the potato leek waffle from Belgium (OMG MY ABSOLUTE FAV), the escargot croissant from France, lefse from Norway, and caramel popcorn from Germany. Not all of those are F&W Festival specific, but they were all delicious. The croissant thing had weird texture, but wasn't too bad. Of course we also tried the free sodas from Club Cool (Thailand's Melon Fanta is the best!). 

We took a short break in the middle of the day to go cool down, try find my phone, and digest food. We mostly did rides when we came back, Soarin' (ONE OF MY FAVORITE RIDES AT WDW), Spaceship Earth, and Test Track (Sarah had never been, she didn't really like speed rides during our program). After Soarin' we headed back to the hotel, we were pretty pooped from the day and I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before. Overall a wonderful first day :)

Sarah on the left, me on the right (in my hot plane clothes)

Epcot sunsets are actually the best.

We had a BALL at Epcot ;)