WDW Sisters' Trip II -- Day 1

FINALLY, I've had a few moments to sit down and begin my Walt Disney World trip report! This has been a pretty hectic week involving two super-huge meetings and a video-interview. Whew. Anyway, today has been a little less crazy so I thought I would start detailing my recent adventure in Florida with my sister!

I guess our trip sort of started the previous day with Shannon traveling from Los Angeles to Washington DC. She barely missed the shooting at LAX (her flight left on 1 November at 8 am!) and made it here in DC safe and sound. We rounded out the night eating a taco dinner followed by a dessert pumpkin spice m&ms and playing The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask on the Wii.

Our trip REALLY began the next day (2 November 2013) with our flight for Orlando leaving DCA at 10 am. We arrived in Orlando a ½ hour ahead of schedule (noon) and made our way straight to the Magical Express loading area. We rode the bus to our lovely hotel: Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort! This is where Shannon and I stayed on our last trip and we loved it so much that we decided to stay there again for this trip.

 

We easily checked in and found our room (#5230 in the Casitas section)--we were very close (one floor down and a couple rooms over) from where we stayed 2 years ago. After getting settled into the room we zipped off to EPCOT by about 2 pm. We were very excited to get our first glimpses of the Food and Wine Festival!

Our first order of business upon arrival to EPCOT was to ride Spaceship Earth (one of my favorites!). From there we headed into World Showcase (among intense crowds of people eating and drinking at the Food and Wine booths) and made our way to Japan for a late lunch at Katsura grill. My food was excellent: shrimp tempura udon soup, iced green tea, and green tea cheesecake. Shannon and I were on the free dining plan again (lucky) and it definitely was nice to not have to pay for any of our food during our trip.

 

After a tasty lunch, we wandered around World Showcase, rode Maelstrom in Norway, and rode the 3 Caballeros ride in Mexico (another favorite!). We had some time before our dinner reservation (also in Mexico) so we visited the Food and Wine Festival center. It was really nice and full of interesting souvenirs and demonstrations to look at.

 

By then it was almost time for our dinner at San Angel Inn (Mexico) at 6:45 pm. This was also the first dinner on our last Sisters’ Trip and we decided to stick with our tradition--the food here did not disappoint! My favorite dinner items were my tostadas de tinga.

 

After stuffing ourselves with delicious Mexican food, we decided to transfer over to the Magic Kingdom to enjoy that park at night. We left EPCOT around 9 pm and rode monorail silver to the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC) where we transferred to monorail coral on our way into Magic Kingdom.

We went straight to Tomorrowland to ride...The Peoplemover (another classic favorite!). Next we rode Buzz Lightyear’s Space Rangers followed by the Tea Cups and Winnie the Pooh’s ride. There have been many new additions to Fantasyland since our last trip so Shannon and I enjoyed walking around in the peace and quiet of low crowds at night. We went to Gaston’s Tavern to try a cool apple-honey slushie drink called LeFou’s Brew. It was pretty sweet but nice and refreshing. The theming inside the tavern was amazing--Gaston uses antlers in all of his decorating!

 

From there we rode the new Little Mermaid ride (pretty nice) followed by Dumbo (now there are double Dumbos!) and Goofy’s Barnstormer. After that quick little roller coaster, we decided to head back to the hotel via bus, leaving Magic Kingdom from our incredibly-convenient bus stop around midnight (pretty good for our first day!). We made it back to Coronado Springs, took showers, and went to bed ready for the next day: a morning at Magic Kingdom!