8 Day Disney World Travel Diary
8 DAY DISNEY WORLD TRAVEL DIARY
This has been a loooong awaited post, for sure! We love Disney, especially Disney World! It’s so magical and honestly it’s our happy place. Don’t get me wrong we LOVE visiting other countries and places we haven’t been before, but something about knowing your way around the parks while still being surprised is so special too! This 8-day Disney travel Diary is actually the trip we took in December of 2018!
DAY 1 TRAVEL DAY AND DISNEY SPRINGS
We flew into Orlando(MCO) with an early flight, so we could get to the hotel right at check-in. We love that Disney will pick you up from this airport. It’s simple, free and you don’t have to worry about a thing! You can fill out the form here to get airport pick up all set for your trip! We checked into Disney’s All-Star Music Resort, you can read more about what we thought of the resort in this blog post, here!
We checked into our room, changed and headed to our favorite restaurant in Disney Springs, Raglan Road! We love eating here, not only because it was where we had our wedding reception brunch, but the food is to die for and the atmosphere is so much fun. They have tons of live music, dancing and a very fun and knowledgeable staff. Dustin had the Seafood Gnocchi and I had the Boar Burger.. YUM! After a drink, dinner and some live music we headed home for some rest to prep for the next full day of fun!
DAY 2 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
We spent the day at Universal Studios. This was our first time here and you can read more about that here!
DAY 3 ANIMAL KINGDOM
Animal Kingdom - You can read my 10 Tips for Animal Kingdom, here!
Rides we did:
Where we ate:
Breakfast - Honestly, we were a little disappointed with the breakfast options. Let me preface this by saying I have a gluten allergy and gluten free options were slim for breakfast. We always stop for coffee at Starbucks which is called Creature Comforts in Discovery Island. We ended up getting some fresh fruit and cheese from Harambe Fruit Market to tie us over until lunch.
Lunch - For lunch we ate at Restaurantosaurus, we just happened to be in DinoLand and it was close. I had the gluten free chicken nuggets and Dustin got the Grilled Chicken BLT Sandwich.. it looked really good! Though, it was pretty standard food and we wished we would have eaten in Asia or Africa, next time!
Dinner - I made reservations at Sanaa for 7:55pm and the park closed at 8pm. ROOKIE MISTAKE. Face palm, seriously! I never made the connection that Sanaa was at the Animal Kingdom Villas and not the park, we missed our reservation and luckily Disney waved the fee for a late cancellation. We ended up eating at Pizzafari because I heard so many great things about it. I’m not sure if we just had bad luck but the food was pretty disappointing. We both got pepperoni pizza, I got GF and Dustin got regular.. we both realllllly didn’t like it! I wonder if we should have tried the pasta, maybe it would have been better.
DAY 4 DISNEY SPRINGS
Disney Springs day! We spent the whole day at Disney Springs which is pretty easy to do! We arrived to Disney Springs just a bit after noon and headed straight to Splitzville Luxury Lanes! We bought an hour of bowling and split a couple of sushi rolls. We got the Spicy Tuna and the Galaxy Roll, both were good. We spent the afternoon wandering through all of the shops and taking in the atmosphere. For dinner we ate at Boathouse and OH MY GOSH, their lobster bisque is LIFE CHANGING. It was so buttery and smooth and yum! Dustin had the fish tacos and I had the filet mignon sliders, both very good plates! We ended the night by splitting a bottle of wine at Wine Bar George, we sat at the bar downstairs but they have great seating upstairs as well! There are tons of restaurants in Disney Springs, you can read about our favorites here!
DAY 5 MAGIC KINGDOM
Magic Kingdom - You can read my 10 Tips for Magic Kingdom, here!
Rides we did:
Where we ate:
Breakfast - Again, there were slim gluten free options for breakfast but we grabbed a coffee from Starbucks on Main Street! At Disney World the Starbucks is called Main Street Bakery.
Lunch - Columbia Harbor House, I had the chicken fingers(my favorite by far!) and Dustin had the Lobster Roll, he said it was really good!
Dinner - Pinocchio Village Haus, I got chicken nuggets again and Dustin had the Chicken Parmesan Sandwich! I had chicken nuggets/fingers many times on this trip because I didn’t know how many other GF options there were for me! I am going again in August and can’t wait to try new GF foods!
This night was extra special for us because we purchased tickets to stay for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party! You can read more about our experience at the event in this blog post. We had a blast! We had a really long day at Magic Kingdom, we were at the park from 7:30am-2:15am! We stayed just over two hours after the event to be able to get some shots on Main Street sans people!
DAY 6 RESORT DAY
We decided to take it easy on this day. We slept in and had lunch at our resort. We spent the rest of the day hanging out by the pool! Staying at the resorts is so great because you can easily spend the day there between the pool, food options, arcade, and activities they have planned.
DAY 7 EPCOT
Epcot
Rides we did:
Where we ate:
So. Many. Things. lol
When you are planning your Epcot Day, plan for it to revolve around alllll the yummy foods! I have this broken out into meals but truthfully, it was continuous eating and drinking.
Breakfast: Starbucks, yet again. Always start a park day with coffee! At Epcot, it is called Fountain View! Though next time I do want to try Joffereys coffee.
Lunch: Dustin had Kabuki Cafe in Japan and I ate at Liberty Inn.
Snacks and drinks: I am going to start in Mexico and make our way around to Canada, If I don’t mention a country then we didn’t get anything from there!
Mexico: Mango frozen Margarita from La Cantina de San Angel
China: Egg rolls and a Canto Loopy drink at Joy of Tea
Germany: Pink Grapefruit Hefeweizen, Honey Bourbon Shots, and Selbach-Oster Riesling from Sommerfest
Italy: We both had a glass of wine in Italy but I can’t for the life of me remember from where. I believe it was from a stand in the front of Italy!
France: Orange Slush from Les Vins des Chefs de France
United Kingdom: Fish and chips from Yorkshire County Fish Shop
Dinner: We had dinner at the hibachi grill called Teppan Edo in Japan and it exceeded our expectations, it was so good and we were so full afterwards!
DAY 8 HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
Fast Passes:
Where we ate:
Breakfast: Starbucks again, haha shocker! At Hollywood Studios, Starbucks is called The Trolley Car Cafe!
Lunch: We sort of ate Breakfast/Lunch at Woody’s Lunch Box, there were so many good things to try! We sort of got a smorgasbord and split things! There were tons of GF options as well! We got the S’mores French Toast Sandwich, Smoked Turkey Breakfast Sandwich and the BBQ Brisket Melt. All were yummy, though I probably wouldn’t get the S’mores French toast again. It felt like I was eating Nutella toast with marshmallow fluff, not my cup of tea!
Dinner: We headed back to the resort early and ate dinner there, we had to catch the bus at 2:30AM to head to the airport!
I hope you guys enjoyed this post and found it helpful! I will be doing the other blog posts as well for the 11 day trip, 6 day trip and the day in Disney World trip soon! Like I mentioned before, we love Disney because its comfortable and we know our way around, yet every trip is different! Let me know if you have questions at all, I would love to help you with your next trip!