theme parks Archives - Cherise and Shine

DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Ahh, Hollywood Studios. The very last Disney theme park in the world for me to check off my bucket list! We went here late in the afternoon on the second day of our 2-day Disney World adventure, so really, this was more of a 3-hour adventure as opposed to a half day. For the general overview of our time at Disney World resort, click here. For Hollywood Studios, keep reading!

I will confess that this theme park was probably our least favorite of the four. We still had a blast, but a few hours sufficed for us to spend there. Especially if you have access or have been to California Adventure in Anaheim, I would recommend either skipping or spending very little time in this theme park. It’s a bit smaller, tackier and more overtly Hollywood-themed, which we were feeling a little “meh” about coming from Los Angeles.

The first thing we did was hop on Tower of Terror (Fast Pass), which was definitely worthwhile to do.

The attraction is a lot of fun, and if you ever rode the (former) Anaheim attraction at California Adventure, it’s a little bit different. It also maintains more of a “Twilight Zone” feel to it than its international counterparts do. I would highly recommend it! After that, we wandered the Star Wars launch bay a bit, but decided not to go for Star Tours or Toy Story Mania, as both were the same in the Anaheim theme parks. Instead, we watched the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!

After that, we wandered a little bit more before leaving the park, changing and hopping onto a bus to make our 7:15pm California Grill dinner reservation (which we were 20-minutes late for, but they still took us!).

When we got to California Grill (atop the Disney Contemporary Resort), we were immediately met with great customer service. They knew we were there to watch the 9:00pm firework show, and encouraged us to take our time and gave tips for going out on the observation deck to watch. They were also well aware of their allergy-friendly options (I highly recommend asking, because sometimes you can modify things on the menu that aren’t noted on the allergy listings).

We ordered our food and some wine, and slipped outside to watch the sunset over the Magic Kingdom while waiting for our cheese plate and entrees.

We popped back inside the restaurant to eat a little bit before slipping back onto the observation deck five minutes before the fireworks started. Honestly, the food here was decent, but a little forgettable. The main reason you’d want to eat here is to watch the fireworks, so plan your dinner accordingly!

Then the fireworks. The fireworks from the rooftop were magical. The music was pumped throughout the observation deck as we watched the show over Sleeping Beauty Castle and Space Mountain. Although much of the show involved lights on the castle that may have been better viewed from inside the park, it was a hot and busy weekend, and we enjoyed being able to sit in our comfortably air-conditioned restaurant instead of staking out a spot in front of the castle hours in advance of the show.

After dinner and fireworks, we walked from the Contemporary Resort to the Magic Kingdom, where we caught a bus that got us back to our hotel around 11:30pm.

Lifestyle

Half Day in EPCOT

July 27, 2017April 5, 2023 Cherise and Shine

EPCOT

We adventured to EPCOT the second morning of our insane 2-days at Disney World. For an overview of our trip and tips (as well as links for the other parks), click here. For details on EPCOT, keep reading!

After a very restful night’s sleep following our crazy 20-hour day, we woke up and headed over to EPCOT: the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. I remember watching Disney video tapes (yes, I’ve just dated myself—90s kid!) when I was little and seeing promos for EPCOT in all the Disney World ads. I would stare at that giant golf ball-esque sphere and think, “WHOA! I’m going to go there someday.” 20 years later, that came true! Honestly, I was still giddy when we first stepped into EPCOT, and so ready to take on the day.

We had woken up at 7:30am-ish and hopped on a bus around 8:15am to get to EPCOT by 8:30am to start our day. We hung around Future World until 11:00am, which gave us enough time to ride Spaceship Earth (Orlando-specific, Fast Pass), The Seas with Nemo & Friends (Orlando-specific) and grab a Starbucks coffee (of course).

Around 11am, we made our way over to World Showcase, where we spent the majority of our time (and also where most of my Disney Instagram pictures came from). It goes without saying that World Showcase was my favorite part of the park, and honestly probably of Disney World as a whole. I adored the building facades and country-inspired international foods. It’s difficult to choose a favorite pavilion, but we really enjoyed Japan (some bias there), Morocco, France and Canada. We circled the whole World Showcase display twice before lunch.

MEXICO: This pavilion is quite pretty from the outside, and nicely air conditioned on the inside. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time here, but really enjoyed walking around it.

NORWAY: This one was really more of an Arendelle pavilion, to be honest. Almost everything around it was Frozen-themed, and while it was pretty, we didn’t get as much out of it.

CHINA: The Chinese-themed pavilion was fun to walk through, and we really loved the 360 “Reflections of China” film. I’ll confess I’m a little biased since I used to live in Shanghai, but it’s definitely worth a walk-through. Also, fun fact: this pavilion served as the music video location for Christina Aguilera when she sang “Reflections” for MULAN!

GERMANY: This one looked like a cute German town, and has a model village with toy trains to the side of it that my husband really enjoyed. We didn’t spent a whole lot of time here since much of it is a Biergarten and there’s not a whole lot of German food I can eat with my gluten allergy.

ITALY: We didn’t spend much time here, either, but we loved the architecture. This pavilion has recreations of Saint Mark’s Campanile and Doge’s Palace, which give it such a classic feel.

USA: To be honest…we completely skipped this one both walkarounds. I don’t even have a photo to share. From the outside, it sort of looked like a rehash of Liberty Square at MK.

JAPAN: The gorgeous pagoda (again, bias from living in Tokyo), replica of the Imperial Palace and Itsukushima Shrine make the Japan pavilion a standout. This is one of the original pavilions, and has a cute little shop inside that we struggled to resist purchasing anything at.

MOROCCO: Did you know that the Moroccan government actually aided in the design of this one? It shows!!! The architecture at this one was our favorite of all the pavilions, and really added fuel to our desire to visit Morocco someday. There’s not a whole lot to do here, but definitely stop by to take in how pretty it is.

FRANCE: Meant to look like a Parisian town, the French pavilion can definitely make you feel like you’re in a scene from Ratatouille. We grabbed ice cream here at L’artisan des Glace, and really loved it. This area carries so much charm, and I only wish we had enough time to watch “Impressions de France.”

UK: Honestly, we weren’t too impressed with this pavilion. It was fun to walk around and see the Twining’s tea shop, but it wasn’t as rich in culture as I felt it could have been.

CANADA: Truth be told, we really liked this pavilion. We had fun watching the 360 “O Canada!” film with Martin Short, and found the waterfalls to be quite pretty. But most of all, OUR LUNCH AT LE CELLIER was soooo good. We managed to score a reservation there on Canada Day, so the place was packed. Le Cellier has great lunch deals and also has substantial allergy-conscious selections. We were able to have a refreshing poached pear salad, delicious steaks (me a ribeye and him a filet mignon), the BEST truffle-wine poutine ever and a maple crème brulee. Easily one of our top two favorite meals!

After our (long and worthwhile) lunch at Le Cellier, we finally made our way over to Hollywood Studios. We opted to take a ferry boat from one park to the other, and while walking may have been a faster option, it was quite fun and ended up being a nice place for us to nap a bit to recover from our food coma. Plus, it was raining a bit, so it was great to be covered. We finally arrived at Hollywood Studios close to 4pm, and just had a few hours to spend there before our dinner reservation!

For Hollywood Studios, click here.

Lifestyle

Half Day in Disney’s Animal Kingdom

July 27, 2017April 5, 2023 Cherise and Shine

DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM

As promised, here’s a posting on our experiences at Animal Kingdom in Orlando! If you’d like to see a general overview of our 2-day Disney World hopping experience as well as a list of the other theme parks, click here.

This Florida-unique park was a highlight for both of us, and was my husband’s favorite of the four parks. When we went in, we were quite taken by the impressive Tree of Life (home to 300 different animals carved into it!).

We got more coffee at Starbucks (every single theme park had a Starbucks, which was a sight for sleepy eyes) and ventured over to Africa. Seeing that the line for Kilimanjaro Safaris was only 10 minutes on Standby, we sprinted over and hopped on a tram. I highly recommend this ride as you get to see a variety of animals in their Harambe Wildlife Reserve—we saw antelope, cheetahs, elephants, hippos, rhinos, ostriches, zebras, giraffes, flamingos, gazelle and more!

After the safari, thunder began rumbling throughout the park, and we dashed over to “Festival of the Lion King” just in the nick of time to escape the rain. This show is a fun one for both adults and kids alike, and is filled with singing, dancing, fire and colors. This is also a great way to escape the heat and rest your feet!

After the 30-minute show, we left the indoor area to discover that the park was flooding—literally. Crowds of people shrieked and flocked out of Animal Kingdom as quickly as they could. We realized our puny sweaters couldn’t hold off the rain, and we purchased two ponchos at a stand. Umbrellas were sold out throughout the park.

Laughing through the rain and sloshing through ankle-deep water, we decided to make the most of the experience and continued exploring the park. We made our way through to Asia, found some beautiful birds and stared at tigers and Komodo dragons.

After this, we wandered through Dinoland U.S.A., Discovery Island and then (of course) Pandora – The World of Avatar. If you can, definitely see this area in both daytime and nighttime. During the daylight hours, Pandora looks like a beautiful rainforest escape. During the night, it glows purple and blue like the alien planet it’s meant to be. As the newest part of the park, it is no doubt the most breathtaking and unique.

We had a Fast Pass for Expedition Everest, but the ride got rained out, so we walked around Animal Kingdom until the storm let up enough for us to go back. If your Fast Pass is unusable during your ticketed time due to weather or mechanical issues, they will let you either go back when the ride is working again or use the Fast Pass on a comparable attraction. Once we made it we had so much fun on Expedition Everest, and I definitely think this one is worth a Fast Pass—especially as an Orlando-only ride.

After exploring, we took a free shuttle from the park to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for our 8pm dinner reservation at Jiko – The Cooking Place. This unique and delicious restaurant is entirely inspired by South African cuisine, and boasts the largest selection of South African wine outside of the country itself. Our server was from South Africa and had amazing recommendations and a pleasant demeanor. She was also very knowledgeable about the foods I could have with my gluten allergy, and even checked to make sure the whiskey in my South African Old Fashioned was corn-based without me even having to ask her! Such great service.

Undoubtedly, this was the most unique meal we had our entire time at Disney World. We started off with a charcuterie plate consisting of Smoked Rabbit Salumi, Smoked Chicken Rillettes, Duck Prosciutto, Elk Sausage and Accoutrements.

My husband got the Mrouzia-style Moroccan Lamb Tagine, and I opted for the 18-hour braised Botswana-style Seswaa Beef Short Rib. My dish was the favorite for us both.

For dessert, we selected the Kilimanjaro—a delicious but not-too-sweet compilation of Tanzanian Chocolate Mousse, Pistachio Financier, Pink Peppercorn Meringue, Cacao Nib Crunch and Ras el Hanout Pineapples. The wine here was also exceptional. The hubby got a red wine flight, and the flavors of each were so full and delicious in their own special ways.

After dinner, we headed back over to Animal Kingdom to take advantage of our Extra Magic Hours in Pandora.

Nighttime in Pandora was stunning. We headed over to the Na’vi River Journey, which had a fairly short line (15 minutes) and was a pleasant, relaxing experience. Then, we went for the main attraction: Avatar Flight of Passage. If there is any remote possibility you can get a Fast Pass for this one, DO IT. Even with our special Magic Hours which only permitted hotel guests to stay in the park late, we waited in a 2-hour long line. To be sure, though, it was worth it. Without spoiling too much, it’s a truly remarkable ride that makes you feel like you’re soaring through the sky.

By the time we finished everything and made our way back to our hotel room at Disney’s Coronado Springs, it was 2:30am. 17 hours of park-hopping and 20 hours later, we were exhausted and ready to crash for a busy next day for the next two parks: EPCOT and Hollywood Studios.

Lifestyle

Disney World in 2 Days on 4th of July Weekend

July 20, 2017April 5, 2023 Cherise and Shine

I’ve heard exactly two things about Disney World in July: that it’s miserably hot and miserably crowded.

Well, I’ve also heard that it’s incredibly spread out and impossible to do all the parks in two days.

Given all these things, why on earth would my husband and I choose 4^th of July weekend (the busiest time of the year) to go to Disney World for the first time? Well, like many people, Independence Day weekend was when we had some time off from work and didn’t have to request extra days to travel. Flights from LA to Orlando were fairly affordable. And let me tell you—with the right amounts of research, fast passes and meal reservations, even crowded Disney World in Florida heat is nothing short of magical.

HOW TO STRATEGIZE

PRIORITIZE: Let me start off by telling you that you certainly won’t be able to go on every ride or see every show at Disney World if you’re there just two days. The key to enjoying two days is prioritizing what you want to do most. I’m a bit of a Disney nut. I had already been to every other Disney theme park in the world at this point! Crazy, I know. But it also made me aware of the attractions that were unique to only Florida. For example, Seven Dwarves Mine Cart is one of the most popular rides in Magic Kingdom, but we opted to skip this as we had already gone on it at Shanghai Disneyland.

FAST PASSES: Fast Passes are unique in Orlando as you can make selections 30 days prior to arrival with ticket purchase (or 60 days prior to arrival with a Disney resort hotel booked). You can reserve up to 3 Fast Passes per park per day, but popularity tiers also come into play. I highly recommend doing research ahead of your trip to find out what 3-ish rides are most important to you in each park, and planning around those. Touring Plans was an enormously helpful resource for me. It helps you see average wait times, rankings, summaries and tiers of all the rides for each park. We decided to prioritize things like Space Mountain (different from Hyperspace Mountain in Anaheim and in Paris) in Magic Kingdom, Expedition Everest (Orlando-specific) in Animal Kingdom, Spaceship Earth (Orlando-specific) in EPCOT and Tower of Terror (different from Tokyo Disney Sea and Paris Walt Disney Studio Parks) in Hollywood Studios.

RESTAURANTS: If you’re going during the hot summer months of 90F (32C) weather and 40% humidity, it’s wise to plan sit-down meals in the middle of the day for rest, AC and hydration. You can reserve these as early as 180 days prior to your arrival, but if you’re like us and don’t know you’re going until a couple weeks before, you can still usually snag popular restaurants by leaving your computer monitor open and refreshing until an available reservation shows up (fair warning: this may take 2-3 days). This is how I managed to get us spots at Be Our Guest (Magic Kingdom) and Le Cellier (EPCOT) for our two lunches. There are different blogs you can reference that rank the restaurants throughout the Disney World resort (Disney Tourist Blog and Travel and Leisure have some suggestions), but you can also always rely on Yelp and TripAdvisor for reviews. We were incredibly pleased with all our meal options, which included Be Our Guest, Jiko: The Cooking Place, Le Cellier and California Grill. More on these below!

ACCOMMODATIONS: We did lots of research and considered Airbnb, but ultimately stayed at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, which was cheaper than usual due to ongoing renovations at the hotel. If you can, I would HIGHLY recommend staying at a Disney Resort hotel. We loved the pool here, fashioned after the Lost City of Cibola. We enjoyed grabbing a margarita flight at the hotel lounge. Beyond the amenities, staying at a Disney hotel makes your trip more convenient. They will mail your magic bands (functionally your tickets/room key/Fast Pass/restaurant reservation-tracker) straight to your home address. And if you’re planning far enough in advance, you can lock in fast passes up to 60 days in advance instead of the normal 30.

You’ll also be able to take advantage of the free airport shuttle and the free buses to/from the theme parks and Disney Springs (the Downtown Disney shopping area). Not only that, but you’ll get “Extra Magic Hour” in the theme parks—for us, this meant two hours after closing (11pm-1am) in Animal Kingdom to explore Pandora: The World of Avatar. Check online to see what the Magic Hours are for which parks before booking. There are other little conveniences (e.g. checked luggage delivered straight to your room, return flight tickets printed and delivered to your room complete with check-in for your domestic flight, etc.) that made staying at a Disney resort completely worthwhile for us.

WEATHER/CLOTHING: Like I mentioned previously, Florida during the summer is very warm and humid, so pack accordingly! Another thing to note is that it rains almost every day for a short period of time. It might be common sense for many of you, but when I was checking weather before our trip, I naively thought “thunderstorms” in the forecast just meant storms with no rain. We ended up purchasing ponchos in the park—which was expensive, but worthwhile. I would recommend bringing shorts, tanks, sunscreen, sunglasses, comfortable walking shoes and a rain jacket/umbrella/poncho. Also, I brought multiple changes of clothes per day.

Now, without further ado, our crazy two days!!! Links below for each of the four parks:

DISNEY’S MAGIC KINGDOM

DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM

EPCOT

DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

CONCLUSION

And there you have it! All four Disney World parks in two days. It’s definitely possible to do it and have fun without getting heatstroke or feeling miserable. While we didn’t get to hit up everything, we felt rather satisfied with the amazing things we did get to do, and have no regrets.

And pardon the cheesiness, but I must share—when I asked my husband if he had any Disney World words of advice for this post, he sweetly said, “The most important thing to do is make sure you go with someone you love, because no matter where you are whether at a show or in a line, you will be having the time of your life.”

Tag: theme parks

Half Day in Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Half Day in EPCOT

Half Day in Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Disney World in 2 Days on 4th of July Weekend