July Disney World Trip

I spent most of last week at Disney World for a surprise trip with my family. We had the chance to eat at several restaurants we hadn't tried before, including Morimoto Asia, Raglan Road and the Daily Poutine in Disney Springs, the Rose and Crown in EPCOT, and Kona at the Polynesian Resort. They were all absolutely delicious and I'll be reviewing them soon.

We also got to ride the new Soarin' Around the World as well as Frozen Ever After. I have to say, while I really enjoyed both rides, Frozen Ever After keeps breaking down, causing long waits for standby as they try to get all of the fast pass holders on first.

We spent an evening in Animal Kingdom for the first time without Extra Magic Hours. The new lighting on the Tree of Life is gorgeous and we all enjoyed the Bollywood style retelling of The Jungle Book: Alive with Magic. And Everest in the dark is quite the experience: because your eyes don't have to adjust to the dark interior, you can see more of the track as you zip through the mountain. And the park is definitely less crowded at night.

While I would probably go in July again, it was beyond hot, so different precautions needed to be taken to avoid dehydration and heat exhaustion. (Twenty years spent in Arizona really helped me plan for the heat.) I was able to find a new filtering water bottle, which I really like, so I could get additional filtered water and not have to lug around a gallon in a Camelbak all day.

The crowds at this time of year were most unexpected: it was ridiculously easy to get a Fast Pass for nearly anything, but the parks were fairly crowded with tour groups made up entirely of teens. There were at least four large groups of girls that were at Disney to celebrate their quinceaneras. (We noticed that they had a very big private party at EPCOT one evening.) Strangely, the tour groups always seemed to be waiting in standby lines and didn't appear to have any Fast Passes. That resulted in wait times which would change rapidly as groups of 40-60 teens got in line. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind teenagers, but these were a bit rowdy, loud, and under chaperoned, so it wasn't fun to get in line with them.

Our last day, we headed to Disney Springs to see what was new. We stopped in at Uniqlo, which is my new favorite place to shop for fun clothing. They have Disney shirts for the whole family as well as everyday clothing in a variety of styles and materials, like Supima cotton shirts and linen pants. They also have undergear for both warm and cool weather that were developed in Japan. It's an awesome store and I can't wait to shop there again.

Overall, I had a great time and I learned a lot of things that I'll be sharing with you soon. I'm already looking forward to my next trip!