Our Little House

Finally, on our last day, we visited Animal Kingdom (AK).  When I was planning for my Orlando trip, I mostly use resources from: 1.  http://touringplans.com/ 2.  http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/ 3.  http://www.universalorlando.com/ From those information that I read, AK was actually the park that excite me the most. It was just different. It didn't focus on theme park in general (princesses, castles, fairy tales, cartoon characters) yet it didn't sound as educational as Epcot =P Plus, my husband loves watching animal documentaries. So, I thought he would enjoy this park the most. I wanted to visit this park early on our trip, but somehow looking at our schedule and the parks' crowd level, it wasn't possible. So we ended up saving this park for our last day.  As usual we arrived early in the morning. Then while waiting in front of the turnstiles, we did our theme park morning rituals. Firstly, we put on sunblocks. Then we took park maps and ...

Day 5 Hollywood Studios (HS) is the smallest park in WDW. Initially, we thought we would be able to finish this park early and then hopped to Epcot. Since we were done with Epcot , we didn't need to rush anymore. We would just leisurely spend our day in this park, trying to visit as many attractions as we can. Fortunately, we found a very good one day tour plan from touringplans.com . So we had a full itinerary for today filled with headliners and major attractions of this park.  We also checked the crowd level as usual, and it seemed that HS was always crowded during the week that we visited. However, today was the lowest crowd level for this park throughout the 7 consecutive days. So, in short, we chose the best time to visit this park during our 8 days trip. We arrived early around 8AM like usual. Similar to Epcot, the parking lots were located close to the entrance of the park. While waiting in front of the turnstiles, we didn't forget to obtain the park maps and dail...

We finally visited the famous Magic Kingdom on day 4.  As usual, we arrived early in the morning. We didn't have an exact itinerary, but we had a list of attractions that we wanted to visit. My husband was not as excited as I was about Magic Kingdom (MK). He thought that MK would be the exact same park as Disneyland. Well, I think those two parks have around 70% similar rides. Anyway, when we visited Disneyland back in 2010, there are several attractions that we missed. So this time I was planning to visit those attractions plus some attractions that are unique to MK.  From touring plans we knew that this park crowd level was pretty low for that day. What we didn't know ... even a low crowd level for MK was still much crowded if compared to the other Walt Disney World (WDW) parks. Seems like MK is the most popular park in WDW. In addition, we weren't aware of the different parking arrangement in MK. Unlike Epcot , we had to take transportation (either Monorail or Ferry...

Day 3 =D We chose to visit this park in day 3 because we knew that we could finish the park early. We were looking at the lists of attractions, and there weren't many attractions that we really wanted to ride. We just wanted to ride some headliners like Shrek, Despicable Me, and the Mummy. We thought, if we finished early, then we could have some rest in our nice and comfy hotel room =D Besides, we agreed that we need to maintain our energy level since we still had 3 more parks to visit. As usual, we woke up early in the morning and arrived early at the park. It was a pretty morning. This time we didn't miss the sign ... so we found the gate to Universal Studio Orlando. However, similar to day 1, we didn't have an exact itinerary. I read some travel book that suggested us to turned right after entering in the morning, and head to the Simpson and MIB to beat the crowd. We somehow felt that the crowd level was quite low. So, instead of following that route, we t...

Day 2 - Orlando Trip Instead of visiting the other Universal, we chose to visit Epcot in Walt Disney World.  WDW gate at International Dr Somehow, visiting Disney felt different. I'm not saying that Universal is not as good ... It's just that Disney has its own magical charm that is irreplaceable by any other theme parks (IMHO).  As usual, we followed our proven strategy of coming early in the morning. Even before that, we also checked the park's forecasted crowd level at touringplans.com. We tried to adjust our schedule with the crowd level. Initially, we planned to spend one day and a half just for Epcot since a lot of our friends suggested us to do so. When we were lining up behind the turnstiles, we took a copy of park map and daily show schedule. Epcot's famous landmark from the turnstiles This time, we weren't late. We were among the first 10 cars who parked =P By 8.45AM, most of the cast members that manned turnstiles were already at t...

So, this was the park that we visited on Day 1. Actually, I wasn't planning to visit this park on day 1... I was planning to visit Universal Studio Orlando. When we were rushing through Universal City Walk, I was so focused on walking as fast as possible. I didn't stop to read directions. I just followed the crowd. We were kinda late (according to my schedule) and we still need to pick up our tickets from the will-call kiosk. When we're done with our tickets, we walked to the turnstiles and of course ...  there were huge lines already. It was still 8.30 AM. Amazing, isn't it? During this time we began to realize that we're actually lining up in front of Island of Adventure instead of Universal Studio. I wasn't prepared. No itinerary for the day ... I just kinda know what attractions that I wanted to ride the most.  Entering Universal City Walk Look at that crowd! I kept thinking how I should have noticed that we're heading to Island of Adventure ...