Wed 2 1/2 day park

Yes, Magic Kingdom again! 

Our second rope drop because we got group 9 at Tianas! 

Yet another delicious creme brûlée croissant and cinnamon bun at Gaston’s for breakfast. Then we were called straight up for Tiana, Haunted Mansion, Dwarves, Little Mermaid, Buzz Lightyear and our beloved Country Bears (they were broken all morning, didn’t think we were going to see them again!). we did everything we had hoped for.

Home, showers, packed and Uber at 2.30 to MCO.

30 hour journey door to door. Honestly it’s too much, wished it was two flights, but qantas is qantas and change things at their leisure, so three it was.

And so we did it, completed our Disney bucket list. Definitely don’t rate WDW, a one and done, but we had so much fun. Beautiful memories and inside jokes made to last a lifetime. Magic really, that’s what we are all looking for at Disney parks.

Tues 1 Magic Kingdom Last full day

First rope drop of the trip because I woke up too early and got group 7 of Tiana! 

We went on Speedway, then another delicious creme brûlée croissant and cinnamon bun at Gaston’s for breakfast. Then we hit Peter Pan, Seven Dwarves, Tiana, Haunted Mansion, Country Bears Jamboree, Pirates, Tiki room, Seven Dwarves again. Lunch at Harbour for the lobster roll, rubbish! The one in Anaheim is delicious. 

My daughter psyched herself up to go on Tron with me (I may have traumatised her taking her on this in Shanghai when she was 10), sadly we didn’t get the photo and we have followed it up with no response so fingers crossed we get that pic, it was great fun! The boys went on Buzz Lightyear while we did that. It was relentlessly hot, we had the Lava float at Orange bird terrace, it was divine and though I thought it was a share option, I am so glad we got one each 🤣

Did some shopping and it started to pour down! Already inside, so we got a seat at Casey’s for a hotdog dinner (gross) and went home, felt terrible for not so scary party people, awful weather for it.

Mon 30 Animal Kingdom

We are fond of AK, our last day and my son (gamer) wanted to 100% the park, we were pretty close. So a chill last day became hustling to get every single last thing done. For some reason it was super low crowds, felt like we had the park to ourselves!

Always starting in Pandora on Flight and then River. Then the Lion King show, this was amazing, so different from any other Lion King show anywhere, watch it. Lunch at Flame tree, Feathered friends show (also was amazing, and I don’t really like birds), Nemo show (they let you in super early, yay air con, didn’t love the show), Kali River Rapids (SOAKED). 

I really wanted to meet Chip and Dale in their dinosaur outfits, so we got to do that, unfortunately my daughter and I were in matching white tshirts which were soaked, so the pics are a bit wet tshirt-y… The Triceratops spin, Tough to be a bug, at this stage I’m thinking it closes at 7, it’s now 5, kids can do Flight, while we order at Satuli, realise is closes at 6, there are tech difficulties on flight, kids out after closing. They got to eat their cold dinner at Satuli and we went home well after closing.

Sun 29 Typhoon Lagoon



Buses connect at Disney springs, it can be long, ride share is about 10 mins. I wish we realised before embarking on what became an hour plus journey to get there. Get the rideshare! 

The park was basically empty. There were people there, the line for lunch (which was gross) long and it was 20 minutes wait once ordered. But attractions were 5 mins, walk ons, each ride, we couldn’t believe our luck. Mis Adventure was our favourite.

Towels rent at the spot, $2pp but should be free if you Disney hotel guests, loved that! The lockers are $15 for a ‘large’ locker that fits two bags, it really doesn’t, bring the absolute minimum stuff, lockers are small and cost a fortune. There is a big store with everything needed at the front, cute tees and pins, sunscreen etc. There are water mists and sprays throughout which was super appreciated as the ground was hot! 

Wave pool has a 6ft wave!!! It goes off every 2 mins. Best thing we have seen in WDW, best wave pool we have seen in the world! Lovely lazy river, but annoying with people spraying water at you for fun from the side, and cave with waterfall, there is no part where you can miss getting splatted (unlike Aulani). Otherwise was nice though. Plenty of tubes too.

Sat 28 Back to Magic Kingdom, surprisingly our favourite park.

Went on Peter Pan, Little Mermaid, Seven Dwarves (kids non virtual queue fave), Pooh (rubbish), Small world, Pirates, Haunted Mansion broke down, Country bears, Haunted Mansion broke down again, Seven Dwarves. We got the 1pm virtual queue for Tiana, People mover and Buzz Lightyear. It poured this day! We met Tiana and Rapunzel, very sweet.

Ate at Casey’s, the kids tried the corn dog nuggets, I wasn’t game but they did look good! The Frozen Mint Julep is lovely.

Fri 27 Hollywood Studios

Helene was surprisingly chill in Orlando, rained a bit over night, but not scary, we were so lucky.

Hollywood Studios

We went on Rise of the resistance (love), Mickey’s Runaway train (also love) and we did the Muppets 3d movie, wasn’t great, why introduce some random new character, we love the Muppets. We felt like we were running out of things to do here, we definitely overestimated the amount of days needed in each park…

Thurs 26 Animal Kingdom

Hurricane Helene was here. I was watching the parks app and the weather app to see how it was going to go. We decided to go to AK and leave if it felt like it was escalating. The water park and camping were closed, Mickey’s not so scary party was cancelled, we were just playing it by ear. 

Rainy morning, thinking we would stay in, we were doing washing, and the rain eased after a few hours, headed in to the park around midday. It wasn’t super busy, but not quiet!

Did Flight of Avatar, River Naavi journey, Flight again, food at Flame Tree BBQ (this was some of the best vegan and non vegan food we ate), then I had psyched the kids up enough to go on Everest, it was terrifying, way too much backwards, not for us!

5pm wind was picking up, so we went home, Helene due to make landfall at 3am.

Tues 24Premium Outlets and Mickeys Not So Scary Party and wed 25

This morning was shopping at the premium outlets, if you are planning on going to the Disney Outlet, go early and join the queue. We arrived at opening time and queued almost 20 mins, it is hectic in there. We got a few cute things so it was worth it. Shopped for few hours and back to the hotel. It’s a 15 min Lyft or Uber from hotel.

We chilled in our room for a bit, preparing for the evening, it’s time for Mickey’s Not So Scary Party. 

The party starts at 7pm officially, you can enter the park from 4pm, and regular guests are leaving by 6pm. Most things start at 7 (we were told 6 on characters but it was 7) except the Hocus Pocus sipper that is at 6, by 6.09 the queue was over an hour long, so we missed out 😭 if anyone wants to get me one, am happy to pay 🤣 same for the Mickey popcorn bucket, not as long a queue, but not short enough!

Tiana’s Bayou is standby at the party, at times the attraction was basically walk on, don’t miss it!

4pm we hit the park, everyones outfits were amazing!

Buzz Lightyear

Haunted mansion

Early dinner 5.30 Pinocchio, food is not great, we just wanted to eat before 7pm!

7pm Elvis Stitch pic (queue at 6.20 already 30+ people) not 6 as some people have said - moves fast once 7pm came! I am SO pleased we got this greet, I have never seen it before.

Trick or Treat: Laugh floor candy queue moves fast, Tiana’s Bayou 40 min standby then 10-15 delay on attraction making it out just in time to catch the Headless Horsemen in the Boo To You Parade

8.15 Boo To You Parade 20 mins long, big break between horseman and rest of parade, excellent parade though, don’t miss it.

Tiana again, and trick or treating next to Tiana short queue, to Liberty Square to swap the allergy candy tokens for treats, Haunted Mansion magic shot, loved this!!!

Tiana and trick or treating again, then Fireworks that we saw while on Tiana and as we exited, very magical! 

10.30 Not So Spooky Spectacular show at castle, also brilliant! 

Tiana and trick or treating one last time I hoped to get our moneys worth and stay until midnight, we got on the bus at midnight. This was the best time we had on the trip, I can’t believe I almost didn’t book tickets. The vibe was amazing! 

Wed 25

EPCOT

Our favourite thing here is probably Moanas journey a walk through water experience, it was so lovely! 

We went on Remy, it broke down, walked off Remy. Ate around the world, the food wasn’t great, the lobster tail was repulsive. The vegan options were way nicer than the meat options.

Onto Frozen, lovely. Tech issues on grand fiesta, stuck for 20 mins.

To try and make Epcot more interesting we did the Remy hide and go seek map, I think it was $10ish the prize is a bowl, but it definitely gave us something to do in the park. It was fun, in the beginning frustrating as we didn’t know the rules of where he might be, ALWAYS OUTSIDE.

Ate delicious baked good in Les Halles in France, more treats at Karamel Kluche in Germany (gingerbread cookie sandwich was my fave), so treats in Epcot are great, just the food for meals, less  

Mon 23 Rest Day

We aren’t usually a rest day family, but with the time difference and heat, we needed a day of being more still. Slow morning, took the ferry to Disney Springs, this is huge with not too much shade or seating. Looked at all the stores, it’s a lot, but with not much? Not my fave. Got an excellent lunch at Earl of Sandwich and treats from Goofys Kitchen to bring back to the hotel for an afternoon snack. A chill afternoon, did some washing. The laundry system is awesome, done online/by app, lets you know how long is left of your load.

Swim at Ol’ Man Island, our quiet 24h pool is still closed. The kids like this one though. Water slide is not amazing, but something to do, and honestly better than I expected!

Tried instacart, best thing ever, met driver at bell services and didn’t have to pay $6 plus tip to have it delivered to your room, got a bunch of drinks, so nice to have cold drinks in your fridge, will do again!!! We bought some bananas, blueberries, and pineapple, the bananas were delicious, the others were so sour… Ate at the hotel food court, food below average and items missing from mobile order.

Sun 22 Hollywood Studios

We spent over 3h in Batu lots of memory maker pics, character interactions with Mando and Grogu – this is not a line, it’s a hover and hope they pick you, in the cave area near the shops/bathroom area, more characters roaming for interaction than other parks, reminds me of Disneyland. Breakfast at Ronto roasters, it was gross. They did have a plant based option though! Rode Rise of the Resistance, which I love. Had a booking for OGAS rad! Carbon freeze (YUM!), blue milk (mediocre) and Ogas obsession which is Jelly and was quite delicious, we have so much fun at Ogas. Onto Smugglers run, which I don’t love, but the kids wanted to try it out. Had the very best time, it’s so immersive, almost a carbon copy of California. 

Toy Story land was just so oppressively HOT, no shade and seats. I have no idea how this was approved, seeing small kids in the burning sun was quite worrying. Alien Spin was fun, Slinky Dog Dash is the best one we have ridden, Toy Story Mania was excellent, same as California. We LOVE Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, went on that twice, then Frozen Singalong which was heaps of fun (they also let you in 20 mins early, soak up that air con). The hosts were funny, but all over the place, almost playing drunk, I loved it, kids were laughing too.

Dinner at Sci Fi Dine-In Theatre as part of the Fantasmic package, it’s super dark in there. A good experience, but one and done. It was nice to have a healthy meal, good pasta pesto (also plant based), and the impossible nachos. Rode Rise of the Resistance again. 

The 8pm Fantasmic show we had priority entry for, this is seated though, I wish I knew, wouldn’t have paid a wild amount of money for priority seating. It’s honestly so hot, wouldn’t have minded going in an hour early to get a seat and chill. The package seating was an amazing view though. Right in the centre.

Disney's Hollywood Studios Rides and Attractions and thoughts 

Animation Courtyard 

Disney Junior Dance Party!

Walt Disney Presents

Commissary Lane

Mickey & Minnie – Red Carpet Dreams

Echo Lake

A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration (lots of fun) 

Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular 

Mickey Shorts Theater 

Star Tours – The Adventures Continue 

Grand Avenue 

Muppet*Vision 3D (okay) 

Hollywood Boulevard 

Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway (LOVE) 

Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge 

Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run (worth a try) 

Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (LOVE) 

Sunset Boulevard 

Beauty and The Beast – Live on Stage 

Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster 

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 

Toy Story Land 

Alien Swirling Saucers (cute) 

Slinky Dog Dash (loved this one) 

Toy Story Mania! (Love this, same as California)

Sat 21 10 Ohana Breakfast at the Polynesian Hotel and Magic Kingdom

We took a 5 min rideshare to Ohana breakfast at Polynesian hotel, we went early for the shops which were average. The Polynesian was beautiful, very reminiscent of Aulani, but with a strong scent which made me feel a bit headachey.

Checked in for Ohana, the cast member was very disinterested, which felt crap at that price point. We have done many character dining experiences and they are usually a highlight, but I really didn’t get that here. The characters just stroll down the middle of the tables, not around to each individual, so one kid is sat down in every photo and the other has the sat down child in front of every photo. The character didn’t really interact with parents, also weird, have had some hilarious interactions at other character dining. On top of that, the lighting is awful, so the pictures aren’t very nice. It just feels poorly thought out, and I did feel like it was a waste of money. It was cool to meet Lilo though, we hadn’t met her before. Just not worth it for us. 

From here we got the monorail to Magic Kingdom, this was excellent, and easy. But on entry to the park they were acting really cagey about letting my husband in, they said they were calling the manager over because there was something wrong with his ticket. I go into full anxiety mode, it made no sense. They shooed me and the kids away, it was very stressful. It looked like they were talking about his tattoos, eventually they let him through, it was because inside of his bicep has Mickey Mouse drinking and smoking, so he had to put a bandaid on it. This is wild to me, as we have been in every park in the world with this tattoo, and have photos in the parks with Mickey of him pointing to the tattoo. There is also 1929 footage of Mickey drinking. Anyway, he covered it up, he wasn’t asked to cover it up at any other point in the trip, the dude is covered in tattoos, I can’t even believe that the cast member spotted it. The way that they went about it was very stressful, but they gotta do what they gotta do 🤷🏻‍♀️ I felt like letting people in in MAGA hats and tshirts was probably less appropriate than a debaucherous Mickey tattoo… It absolutely detracted from our entry experience, I was so anxious and found it hard to settle into the magic. This is the first Disney Castle in the world that I didn’t have a little cry when I saw it, I too wound up.

Firstly, I will say that Magic Kingdom is my favourite WDW park (unexpectedly), yet every attraction feels shorter and lacklustre than other parks, missing parts that we enjoy, worst pirates ever missing half the ride! Not a great big thunder, but Seven Dwarves Mine Train made up for that. We LOVED Country Bears Jamboree, ran into a bear outside, then realised that the bears are always roaming around out the front. Haunted Mansion was fine, Small World was the worst we have ridden. We ate at Pinocchio’s, they had a vegan pizza, nothing else there was very tasty. At 1pm we tried for a virtual queue for Tiana’s Bayou and got it, we LOVED it!!! Peter Pan was very sweet. Seven Dwarves Mine Train was lots of fun, but short. Loved Little Mermaid which is always nostalgic, disgusting meal at Cosmic Rays and finished on Buzz Lightyear.

Magic Kingdom Rides and Attractions and our thoughts overall 

PEOPLE MOVER (interesting ride) 

Adventureland Enchanted Tiki Room (fine, same as the others) 

The Magic Carpets of Aladdin 

Pirates of the Caribbean (missing half the ride) 

Swiss Family Treehouse 

Fantasyland 

The Barnstormer 

Dumbo the Flying Elephant 

Enchanted Tales with Belle 

"it's a small world" (terrible, no Easter eggs) 

Mad Tea Party (did the Halloween overlay at Mickey’s not so scary party, cool) 

Mickey's PhilharMagic 

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (terrible, they are all terrible except Tokyo) 

Peter Pan's Flight (sweet, same as the others) 

Prince Charming's Regal Carrousel Princess Fairytale Hall (nice to meet some princesses) 

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (loved it) 

Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid (always LOVE IT) 

Frontierland Big Thunder Mountain (worst of them all) 

Country Bear Jamboree (loved it, favourite in the world) 

Tom Sawyer Island 

Tianas Bayou (LOVE! We went on this 7 times over the course of our trip) 

Liberty Square 

The Hall of Presidents 

Haunted Mansion (always love it) 

Liberty Square Riverboat 

Main Street USA 

Tomorrowland 

Astro Orbiter 

Buzz Lightyear's Astroblasters (fine, same as the others, tips below) 

Carousel of Progress 

Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor (not for us) 

Space Mountain 

Tomorrowland 

Speedway (fine, same as the others) 

TRON Lightcycle Power Run (LOVE IT, same as the other one)

Buzz light year astroblasters 

TIP where to hit for high scores! Don’t read if you don’t want spoilers:

Room 1 big robot aim for the target on the inside of its arms Claw above you in transition to next room keep shooting until in second room Room 2 top of the volcano Room 3 zurgs ship there is a 25,000 target at the bottom Transition try to hit the body of the spaceship flying around Need 999,999,999 get a sticker

Fri 20 Animal Kingdom

Another busy one! I thought this was supposed to be low crowds. It’s not. 

Started at a cafe in Africa where you can get yummy breakfast foods, cinnamon roll was amazing, breakfast tachos were alright. There were about 20 ppl in the queue, was wild! Headed straight to the Kilamanjaro safari as we had heard that the animals are most lively in the morning, before it gets too hot. Was very cool. Did the gorilla walk, lovely and shady. 

Mobile ordered food at Satuli Canteen, had to try the cheeseburger bao (how does this taste just like a McD cheeseburger?!?), and a delicious plant based option, spicy crispy tofu. You can’t get a seat at satuli canteen until Your food is READY! So having a pending order being prepared isn’t enough, it has to say that it’s ready to be picked up, there was no seating outside, everyone was hot and we were waiting for them to prepare the order. Hot and hungry! I noticed Pongu Pongu next door and remembered that they sell the frozen drink ‘night blossom’ and the spring roll with pineapple and cream cheese!!! While we waited to be allowed to sit at Satuli Canteen. It all worked out perfectly and our order was ready when we grabbed our pongu pongu order. 

We then got to experience Pandoras Flight, this is the best attraction in this park, it’s so immersive. Just amazing. We went on it a lot over the course of the trip. Then onto the Na’avi River Journey, which is very sweet. Kali River Rapids, we got SOAKED, if you don’t like being wet, put your raincoat on for this one, and don’t forget to keep your feet up on the circular bar, so your socks don’t get soggy!

Dino land is closing soon, can see why, it’s pretty dire. We went on Dinosaur, and back to Pandora for another round on each of the Pandora attractions.

We were told this park closes early by 7pm or 8pm, but check, it might be 6pm that day! 

Disney's Animal Kingdom Rides and Attractions and overall thoughts Discovery Island 

It's Tough to be a Bug (this was a 3d movie, not great) 

Tree of Life (gorgeous, get a Photopass photographer to get pics of you here) 

Pandora - The World of Avatar Avatar Flight of Passage (BEST!) 

Na'vi River Journey (cute) 

Africa Festival of the Lion King (amazing) 

Kilimanjaro Safaris (very chill) 

Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail (also chill) 

Asia Expedition Everest (terrifying, too much backwards) 

Feathered Friends in Flight (super interesting) 

Kali River Rapids (excellent fun, wet!) 

Maharajah Jungle Trek (chill) 

Dinoland U.S.A.

Boneyard (not great)

DINOSAUR (terrible)

Finding Nemo: The Big Blue... and Beyond! (Fine, air con!) 

TriceraTop Spin (rubbish)

Thurs 19 Disney Springs and EPCOT

We needed to get our magic bands so went to Disney Springs on the ferry from the hotel for the 11am opening and went straight to Gideons for some delicious cookies! 20 minute wait, worth every minute, my husband went to Erin McKenna for some vegan treats. Both delicious! Then we headed to level 3 of the Coke shop to try the tray of Cokes from all over the world. This was fun! Planet Hollywood opens at 11.30 so that was our last stop. Very easy! Off to EPCOT.

There didn’t seem to be direct routes from Disney Springs to the parks, so we grabbed a rideshare (make sure you have Uber and Lyft so you can compare prices, and always tip a couple of dollars.

Epcot was busy, it was kind of hard to tell where the shops are, this was probably jet lag! There is a lot of walking for what felt for little pay off. Maybe it’s because we have been to many of the countries in the world showcase? It’s just wasn’t that exciting. There aren’t loads of attractions here. Today we went on Remy and Frozen twice.

Full EPCOT rides list, and what I thought of the ones we went on in total:

Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure (this is sweet, same as Paris) Spaceship Earth The Seas with Nemo and Friends (this is not great) Soarin’

Living with the Land

Journey into Imagination with Figment (terrible) 

Frozen Ever After (this is sweet) 

Gran Fiesta Tour Featuring The Three Caballeros (not great) 

Mission Space 

Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind 

Journey of Water Moana walk-thru attraction (loved this)

After a hot day with way too much walking, we wanted to go for a swim at the 24h pool close to our room, but it was closed. Walked to Ol Man Island and had an excellent time there for a couple hours.

Wed 18 Travel Day

Pick up by AXB car service, always great service. Fly QANTAS (partner with AA), arrive Port Orleans 11p, unpack and sleeep until 9am.

Qantas was awesome, but it’s a long flight. As usual they changed the times and routes in the build up. I hate them for this. On the 17 hour flight home my seat wouldn’t recline, which was infuriating.

Smooth transfers through the airports, Sydney and Dallas. Makes things easier.

Delayed on tarmac with American Airlines for 40 minutes in Texas. We were so tired and keen to finally arrive.

Port Orleans 15 nights 5th sleeper (167cm ) cost $5,798.27 USD Midnight staff were awesome, we felt so welcome!

Lucky to be in the 5th sleeper near first bus stop ‘west’ which is awesome for getting a seat every time, but it takes 7-15 mins to get on the road to the park after stopping at every other stop at the hotel, on the flip side it is so good being first off after a long day in the parks. I thought I would hate the buses, and had a budget to get Ubers home each night, but it was really easy, they come really frequently, only once did we wait a very long time. Just make sure you check your stop number so you know how to get home! Port Orleans was almost always the furthest bus stop.

Cute ferry to Disney springs from Port Orleans.

Little 24 hour pool next to our block, but it was only open once and our last day. We did use Ol Man Island a few times, the kids loved it, very upbeat pool!

With laundry near each pool. Laundry is about $8 for detergent and the machine. There is a QR code where you can see what time your load is finishing, that was pretty good.

Use instacart for water bottles, soda, snacks etc to the room, meet at bell services or pay $6 to have delivered to your room. We ordered a lot of fruit and none of it taste sweet, costly and disappointing.

Early park benefit 30 mins early, we only used this the last two days! We were all exhausted, didn’t want an alarm to wake us up. No one wants to be tired and grumpy in the parks, early arrival wasn’t worth that trade.

River mill food court was well below average.

Mobile order missed something or two things EVERY time, and we ate there a lot. I was so desperate for tasty and fresh food. This was not it, but worked when we were all starving.

Florida has a looooong hurricane season. The hurricanes don’t often affect Orlando, but it is something to keep in mind as it looks like every year there are more of them. We were there for Helene. We kept our eyes on the weather app and the Disney app and got one day of significant rain and another day of quite heavy rain. Seeing how badly it hit other parts of the country, we were so lucky.

IF there is another hurricane or just very wet weather and you have tickets to Mickey’s Not So Scary Party go to guest services to check whether you can get tickets to another Halloween party. The night of Helene it was cancelled and refunded.

Pre WDW

Walt Disney World

Wed 18 Sept to Wed 2 Oct

This is a ridiculously long and detailed report. It might not be for people new to Disney Parks, because it is not all favourable and I don’t want to turn people off. This was our final bucket list ‘finish all of the parks’ moment, so there is a lot of comparison. I was actually nervous that I would want WDW to be our home park after this trip, but California keeps the crown for us.

14 day park tickets Park tickets from Attraction tickets. Easy to enter ticket numbers into your phone once purchased.

Includes Magic band and memory maker.

We had to go to Disney Springs Planet Hollywood to get the magic bands, I was really worried that they were going to be awful, old holiday ones or something, but they were teal, which is my favourite colour, so that was awesome!

The memory maker was also awesome, we always get this at parks and this time we got around 250 photos. Take advantage of photo pass photographers, it’s so nice to have good quality family shots! And of course attraction shots. Some of the attractions automatically transferred your pics through your magic band to your Disney account, loved that technology!

Tips for the weather: Orlando is hot and wet in September, 34 degrees and 90% humidity. I knew we would struggle, but it was the only time of the year we could make the trip work.

We bought:

Rain coats from Kmart for $20 which were a must. I hate ponchos and generally anything single use. We used these a few days of the trip and it was absolutely worth having them in our backpacks when rain was possible.

Chilly towels, we loved these in Asia, but only my husband used his and felt it was beneficial. We have 3 left unopened.

Portable fans, these were about $20 on Amazon (I hate using Amazon but couldn’t find the ones we wanted anywhere else). These were a game changer! We all used them, the kids and husband most days, me for a few, but when I did, it was such a relief. Make sure you take a battery pack to recharge these.

Cast compliments: in your Disney experience app there is a tab for cast compliments. Please use this, if anyone makes your day special in any way. You just need their name, date and place of the interaction. We did at least one of these every day. For the amount of cast members that felt like they were just doing a job, it was nice to acknowledge the cast members that make your day special. There were absolutely times we would leave and I would make my son run back and grab their name!

We had a few attractions break down, or keep us sat waiting for over 15 mins while they figured something out. Those were:

Remy - a walk off

Haunted Mansion LL cancelled because broken down TWICE in one day 

Tianas Bayou boarding group 8, broke down around 6 for hours, we still got on! Separately stopped for around 20 mins when we were on it 

Pirates stopped a lot, only once for 15 mins though 

Donald’s fiesta stopped for 20 mins 

Pandoras flight stopped twice, once in the pre boarding room, once on the attraction  

Buzz Lightyear Space ranger spin stopped for 20 mins 

Country Bears Jamboree broke down for hours 

The reason I am listing these is that is these are attractions you want to get on, go on them early in case they do break down.

EVERY RIDE PHOTO IN WDW! This helped us to know when to expect a pic.

Attraction pics are so much fun, here are all of them currently:

MAGIC KINGDOM

TRON Lightcycle / Run (ours didn’t get sent to our app though, following it up) 

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin 

Space Mountain 

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 

Pirates of the Caribbean (before the drop, very strange)

Haunted Mansion

ЕРСОТ

Frozen Ever After

Guardians of the Galaxy, Cosmic Rewind

DISNEY'S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Slinky Dog Dash

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

DISNEY'S ANIMAL KINGDOM:

DINOSAUR

Expedition Everest

Another tip for October Mickey’s Not So Scary parties are on Fri Sun Tues, the parks close by 6 that day, but they are so quiet! You can get a lot done on a quiet day like that.

I was going to do my first booking with a travel agent, but girl was going to charge me $100 fee for booking each of our flights, there is no version of me paying some $400 to book a trip. I am skilled at booking trips, so took over. I understand if you need that support, but I was going to try being lazy, it didn’t work out.

Jinks broke her leg July 2023

 Jinks broke her leg at the start of July, it is healing beautifully, she has to take it easy until November, but we will get there. I just wanted to put out there what to expect if it happens to you.

We were on a family holiday, we interviewed a couple of dog sitters through mad paws and chose a beautiful family, a stay at home Mum and Dad who is a zoologist (speciality wild dogs). A few days before the end of our trip I got the call, Jinks had jumped off the couch and hurt her paw, they asked for consent to take her to the vet. 

They took her to the vet, had X-rays, she had broken her leg. They took her to SouthPaws in Moorabbin, where they were going to operate and put a plate in. Over these days I couldn’t stop crying. The family insisted on looking after her for those last days of our trip. 

Her surgery was successful, she went home with a cone on, no movement except to go to the toilet (on a short lead) for two weeks. I am so glad she is crate trained, because it wasn’t a big deal to her to be in the crate (while at the families house).

We picked her up, I couldn’t have been more relieved to see her beautiful little face. Took her home. At home we put a mattress on the lounge room floor and I pretty much worked from there for that two weeks. I kept her on a lead and harness, she mostly slept. We got great advice to buy a satchel to take her for walks in, which we did every morning. Getting down at her favourite sniffing spots so she could feel like a part of the world. Some yoghurt or peanut butter on a licky mat and a friend bought her a snuffle mat which she looooooved! The cone didn’t bother her, which I was so pleased about.

There was a one week check up, looking at the wound, making sure it was healing well. Then a two week check up, getting her stitches out, looking at how she was walking. The staff at SouthPaws were lovely! The total cost start to finish was around $6000, we paid $200 excess and 10% of the total with Knose Insurance. 

After two weeks she was allowed to walk, 5-10 minutes twice a day, building up 5 minutes a fortnight until 20 minutes twice a day at 8 weeks. 

After all of the check ups, she was free to go on with her plate remaining in. If we have any trouble from it in the future, we go back and get it removed.

I’m putting this up almost a year later. Jinks has healed beautifully. I just wanted it in a place that I can check back.