Wife Mother Runner Star Wars Launch Pad Archives

Why Should We Go To Walt Disney World This Summer?

May 3, 2017

There are many changes coming to Walt Disney World This Summer

We weren’t planning a vacation to Disney this summer; but with all the new updates coming to the parks, I didn’t want to miss out. At Animal Kingdom the land, Pandora the World of Avatar is opening on May 27th. Recently, the Rivers of Light show also opened to the public, so now Animal Kingdom offers lots of new things to do at night. At Hollywood Studios, BB-8 is greeting guests at the Star Wars Launch Bay. Typhoon Lagoon has a new family raft ride, Miss Adventure Falls. Plus, the Magic Kingdom Wishes fireworks show is ending on May 11. A new show, “Happily Ever After” Nighttime Spectacular is making its debut on May 12 .

I am attending the BlogHer conference at the end of June, so I couldn’t go to Orlando and not turn it into a family trip! But of course, like always, it has to be a surprise! So if you are a reader of my blog and know my children, DO NOT say anything about this to them!

Animal Kingdom

Pandora- The World of Avatar

To prepare for this new world, we watched Avatar with the kids recently. My husband and I have never seen the movie so it was great to see it for the first time together. I have heard that it isn’t necessary to watch the show prior to going to the new Pandora the World of Avatar; but I wanted to really understand the story behind the world to gain a better appreciation for it. I also wanted the kids to have that insight.

Source – Wikipedia

Rivers of Light

We were hoping that last Spring when we had our family vacation that we would have the chance to see the Rivers of Light show on its opening day on Earth Day. The show didn’t open until February of this year so we will also be sure to make this a must-do on our list.

I have been avoiding any social media related to these changes because I want to get the first hand experience of seeing it all myself. But I think any preview videos and live broadcasts won’t do it justice. These new immersive experiences in Animal Kingdom are things that have to be seen in person.

Magic Kingdom

Fireworks

The Wishes Nighttime Spectacular is being replaced with a new fireworks and pyrotechnics show on May 12. Happily Ever After Nighttime Spectacular includes an original music score and it will include more recent Disney movie moments projecting onto the castle.

Beauty and The Beast

With the new release of Beauty and the Beast I heard that the Beast in Magic Kingdom has taken on the appearance of the Beast in the live action movie. Since we never went to the Enchanted Tales of Belle interactive story telling show, it is now a must do on our list of things to see!

Hollywood Studios

Star Wars

We love Star Wars and now BB-8 is at the Star Wars Launch Pad. When we were in Disney for the Walt Disney World Marathon in January we got family photos with my parents, my husband and the kids with Chewbacca and Kylo Ren. Well now I need to add to our collection with BB-8! We also didn’t get a close view of the “Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular” fireworks and projection show, so I’d like to stay closer to the Chinese theater to see the entire show.

Typhoon Lagoon

Miss Adventure Falls

The kids love going to the water park. We have only been to Blizzard Beach and last year we tried Aquatica at Sea World. But that didn’t hold a candle up to the fun you can have at a Disney water park. So this time I’d like to try Typhoon Lagoon. Especially since the Miss Adventure Falls family raft ride includes a ride up the conveyor belt to the top of the slide! That is a win-win in my book! Less stairs to climb!

Source – Disney Parks Blog

The Wedding Pavilion

Our 15th Wedding Anniversary

My husband and I are celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary on May 16th so I didn’t want to miss out on a trip to our place of marriage on this special anniversary year. The Disney’s Wedding Pavilion was recently refurbished so I want to get over to our wedding location to take some photos. I’d secretly love to hire a photographer to do some family pictures there. Something to consider for a special gift to my husband!

So as you can see we have a lot to do! I hope we can fit it all in with this one trip. Otherwise, some of it will have to wait until our next one. And by the looks of it, we are going to need a vacation from our vacation!

Planning Our Disney Vacation This Spring

March 15, 2016

I don’t usually create a schedule or put together a to do list when it comes to what we will do on our Disney vacations; but this year we are going during a time of year we never went before and I am a little nervous about it. We never go during school vacations because it’s school vacation time and the whole world seems like they are in Disney during that time of year (besides Christmas). But I did some research tonight and am printing out some information and getting my bearings to help make some decisions and plans.

We are also doing things a little different this time. My Star Wars Dark Side Challenge races conveniently fell during the same time we were taking this trip; so some of my park touring may be altered slightly to accommodate my early wake ups for the two races. But we also didn’t purchase an annual pass this year like we always due. Last October the price of the Annual Pass increased to an amount that just wasn’t going to work for us. When we went in January for marathon weekend we were able to purchase park passes with my Dad’s military discount. This time we are going to purchase multi-day park passes through an employee discount website so we can purchase as many days necessary and we will just factor in some non-park days to this trip. All in all we won’t lose much. We just won’t be able to hop on the monorail some nights to go for a spin around the park on the train and do some rides at night. But since we are staying in resorts on the monorail loop we will take advantage of watching the fireworks shows from the beaches.

There are things I would like to do on this trip that we have never done with the kids before. Surprisingly, we haven’t taken them to the following attractions. Don’t judge, there never seems to be enough time and they always want to do their favorites! So here are a few of the attractions that are a must do on the trip list this year:

Enchanted Tiki Room
The Country Bears
Enchanted Tales with Belle
Indiana Jones
Star Wars Launch Pad
Jedi Training Academy for Adrienne
The New Star Wars Symphony in the Stars: A Galactic Spectacular fireworks show at Hollywood Studios

And I would REALLY love to try to be at the Magic Kingdom for rope drop to see the welcome show. I also want to do a water park and this year I found some great discounted tickets for Aquatica. Since we have done Blizzard Beach twice in the past, I am not opposed to trying something different. Again, this trip is about being cost conscious. We will do our grocery shopping and stock up our room with the essentials, water and alcohol to save on the cost of drinks and food and pack our lunches for the parks and mainly eat our dinners in a park or resort. We have a few reservations for some restaurants that we know we want to go to for sure.

The Epcot Flower and Garden Festival will be in full bloom during this trip so I will be doing my research and posting on my blog some great resources for what is happening for kids this time of year at Epcot. I heard that there are a lot of great kid-centric activities going on this year. I also want to have the children go around to each country and have their name written in the language of that country to put into their journals.

I am also planning on participating in Dapper Day and dressing up for the Magic Kingdom. Diana and Mandy and I are going to get all dolled up in cute dresses after the 10K and take pictures in the Magic Kingdom. Dapper Day celebrates “stepping out in style”. There is no specific period of time that is recreated; but the looks are vintage-inspired. Active and retired military are encouraged to wear their dress blues or service uniforms. I have never been a part of this before so I am looking forward to seeing what everyone looks like!

One last thing that I am hoping we will get to see is the Rivers of Light Show at Animal Kiingdom. This show is debuting in April and rumor has it, that it will be opening on Earth Day , which is April 22. So I am keeping an eye out to hear more about it and how we can participate in this event when it starts showing. It would be so neat to be one of the first people to see this new show! I will also blog about this new feature separately, so stay tuned! Despite all of the construction going on in Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, there is still enough for us to do in Hollywood Studios to keep us busy for a few hours that day and also allow us time to rest for the afternoon and then head to another park for the evening.

So as you can see, this trip is going to take a little bit of planning. I’m going to have to figure out which days will be park days, which days will be relax by the pool days and I also have to get to the Expo and fit my races into the vacation. It’ll all work out, this is nothing compared to Marathon Weekend in January! But I also do want the trip to be so busy with activity that it goes by in the blink of an eye either.

What else do you recommend we try on this trip?

Tag: Star Wars Launch Pad