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 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...

Hi everyone!  I just got back from my Orlando, Florida trip. It was super fun! I am trying to write in detail about the park that we visited and the rides that we took .. however, as usual it will take some time before the posts are ready. Yes, I will divide the Florida trip stories into several posts.  Meanwhile, here are some general tips for visiting theme parks in Orlando, Florida. Let me start with where to stay. I don't remember if I have mentioned about this before in my previous posts ... So, basically I bought the theme parks vacation deal from Costco Travel. I did try to purchase the trip separately (hotel, car, theme parks tickets, and plane tickets) on several different travel websites like Expedia, Hotwire, Kayak, etc. However, I found that the price difference was really small. So we decided to skip all the hassle and just purchased the whole vacation package from Costco.  Costco gave us different total price depending on how long we stay and where we ...

Yup.. I'm counting days for my graduation :) Sometimes I find it hard to believe that almost one year has passed since the first day of my MBA program... I've finished 14 courses in this amazing one year. I got a few good friends too. Anyway ... I also find it hard to describe what I'm feeling right now. Yes, I am glad that this one year is over ... (who wants to continue studying day and night? or having group meetings in weekend? =P) but I'm scared of the unknown future too... Ever since I met my husband, my life is all about planning. We planned our engagement, and then our wedding ... we also planned my education. Now that I've completed my education, what do we have to do next? Everything is so hazy. We still don't know where we will settle down and build our family. I really wish it is US. However, looking at the job market situation ... it's kinda hard to imagine building family here. Thank God my husband still has a job. The problem is whether or...