Visit Dates: February 1-4, 2025

For my 25th birthday (hello quarter-life crisis!), I wanted to visit Walt Disney World, and Sam will never say no to a Disney trip! The last time we visited was June/July 2023 on our honeymoon, so we were excited to revisit our favorites, check out what’s new (Tiana’s Bayou Adventure), and bid goodbye to some attractions (Tom Sawyer Island, DINOSAUR). 

We’ve broken down our itinerary since we think it’s a great example of how you can still have a packed Disney experience even on a shorter trip. Since we’ve been here before, we prioritized our favorites and new attractions, but we still think this is a great high-level itinerary of must-do’s. 

DAY 1: ARRIVAL & EPCOT

• 9:50am: Arrival to Epcot
• Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
• Journey Into Imagination with Figment
• Meet Figment
• World Celebration area (NEW!)
• Picture with Walt statue (NEW!)
• Spaceship Earth
• Journey of Water (NEW!)
• 1pm: Book virtual queue for Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind
• Soarin’
• Living with the Land
• Explored Festival of the Arts offerings
• Frozen Ever After
• Meet Anna & Elsa
• Meet Asha
• Club Cool
• Meet Mickey & Friends
• The Seas with Nemo & Friends
• Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind
• Dinner at Regal Eagle Smokehouse
• Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure

Our flight departed from Pittsburgh at 6:10am, and after a smooth flight, we landed at MCO exactly two hours later. We caught a Lyft to our hotel, Pop Century, where we dropped off our bags with the luggage service since our room wasn’t ready yet. From the hotel lobby, it was a straight-shot to the Skyliner station. Disney’s Skyliner is their newest transportation offering, which are suspended cable-cars that connect Epcot and Hollywood Studios to a select few hotels.

After a 20 minute ride on the Skyliner, we arrived in Epcot a little before 10am. Since their Skyliner station is in the back of the park between the France and UK pavilions in the World Showcase section, we hopped in line for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. 

After that, we made our way to the front of the park, hitting Journey Into Imagination with Figment. We also checked out an area of the park that was under construction during our last visit — World Celebration. There wasn’t too much to do yet, but there was a stage that seemed to host a few shows throughout the day. It was a very pretty part of the park, and I really enjoyed how much seating it offered, as that’s one thing that I find to be absent in Epcot. We’ll see during the summer if there’s shade there too. 

Then we made our way up to Spaceship Earth (if you can read this blog post, thank the Phoenicians!) and spent some time at the front of the park. Now that we use the Skyliner more often, we hardly see the main entrance, where the buses and parking lots are. 

We also got to check out Epcot’s newest attraction, Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana. This is a walk-through, self-guided outdoor trail that uses familiar characters from Moana to educate about water — from the water cycle to water conservation. Honestly, we had low expectations for this, thinking it was just a simple way to disperse crowds, but we were pleasantly surprised! While a bit crowded right at the beginning of the trail, things thinned out, and we had no problem getting to experience the different interactive elements. Overall, we really enjoyed this attraction and think it’s a great addition to Epcot!

Feeling refreshed, we went over to The Land pavilion to do Soarin’ (every time we’ve rode together we end up on the same section but thankfully they’ve pretty much fixed the Eiffel Tower warping) and of course, Living with the Land. We decided to head back to World Showcase, stopping to check out a few of the festival offerings on our way to Frozen Ever After in Norway. We then checked out some of Epcot’s other offerings, like character meet-ups, the Nemo ride, and of course, tasting the different sodas at Club Cool (Sam tried the Beverly again but once was enough for me!).

Since we were mid-flight when the first batch of Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind virtual queue boarding groups dropped at 7am, we had to wait until they opened again at 1pm to try our luck. Thankfully, we got in! After some delays, our boarding group was finally called around 6:20pm, and we were able to enter the line. This is one of our favorite rides, and I was so excited to get “September” as our ride song!

We finished up our night by slowly walking back through World Showcase, stopping at any of the food booths that caught our fancy. We had a late dinner at Regal Eagle Smokehouse, the barbecue quick-service spot in the American pavilion and one of our favorite spots to grab a meal. We got in line around park close for a final ride on Remy before exiting the park and getting on the Skyliner to head back to our resort. 

When we finally got back to our hotel room (we had been up and active for almost 19 hours at this point), our bags were waiting for us thanks to a little Disney magic! The room was a basic value resort room, but it was functional and spacious enough for the two of us. The murphy bed/table was a nice addition too. We crashed shortly after getting into our room since we had an early day at Hollywood Studios!

DAY 2: HOLLYWOOOD STUDIOS

• 7:30am: In line for the Skyliner
• 8:10am: Let into the park
• Rise of the Resistance
• Rockin’ Roller Coaster
• Tower of Terror
• Meet Buzz Lightyear
• Breakfast at Woody’s Lunchbox
• Toy Story Mania
• MuppetVision
• Lunch at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater
• Star Tours
• Mickey & Minnie Runaway Railway
• One Man’s Dream 
• Beauty & the Beast show
• Millenium Falcon Smuggler’s Run
• Kylo Ren show
• MuppetVision
• Rise of the Resistance
• Slinky Dog Dash
• Toy Story Mania
• Fantasmic!

We woke up, or at least attempted to, bright and early for our Hollywood Studios day for two reasons: 1) we weren’t sure exactly when the park would start letting guests in and 2) we knew that the line to get on the Skyliner would be long since two hotels share our station. Without going on a long tangent about the former point, in essence, Sam and I figured out last trip that although early entry for resort guests is 30 minutes before park open, Hollywood Studios seems to let guests in earlier than that, although that’s not advertised explicitly. 

So after waiting in a long but moving line for the Skyliner, we arrived in Hollywood Studios. As expected, although we were there well before 30 minutes to park opening, we were let inside. However, although everyone is able to get into the park this early, only resort guests are able to go on rides or even access certain areas where popular rides are. Since Rise of the Resistance has some of the longest lines in the park, as well as being the ride that tends to shut down the most, we decided to head there first. 

After scanning in with a cast member to get into Galaxy’s Edge, we entered the queue and had a pretty short wait. However, we were really disappointed to find out that going on the ride this early meant that they were not running any of the pre-shows. Even though Sam and I have been on the ride before, we were still really bummed about this. For this reason, we do not recommend going on RotR during this resort-guest-only time as we feel that the pre-shows are essential to the ride experience. 

Because we got onto RotR so quickly, we dashed over to Rockin Roller Coaster before all regular guests could get in line, so the ride was basically a walk on for us. Again, no pre-show for this ride, but this one is less essential to the experience (unless you really love Aerosmith, I guess). This was our last time riding this with the Aerosmith theming — the ride will be given a Muppets retheming once Muppets Courtyard is converted into the Monsters Inc section. 

Sam hopped on Tower of Terror next door while I sat on a bench and people-watched. At this point, we had already gotten the biggest rides of the day done, and we honestly felt a little lost as to what to do next. We ended up spending some time in Toy Story Land — actually, we spent more time than we intended to there. We grabbed some breakfast at Woody’s Lunch Box that we brought with us into line for Toy Story Mania, an arcade-style shooting game. What was advertised as a 45 minute wait turned into a 2 hour ordeal as the ride was unexpectedly on reduced capacity. It’s a good thing we had grabbed food on our way in, but the line was still pretty excruciating and probably our longest of the trip. After we finally got on and off that ride (another win for me!), we had just enough time to watch MuppetVision 3D before lunch.

MuppetVision 3D, the last project that Jim Henson personally worked on, is a Walt Disney World staple and one of our favorite attractions in Hollywood Studios. The 3D movie uses many different effects, including some that even after years of watching the show, I still haven’t figured out yet. Disney is taking out MuppetVision and everything in Muppets Courtyard to make room for the new Monsters Inc. section of the park. While I am thrilled about the new plans, I am disappointed about the sacrifice that’s being made. So, we really soaked in MuppetVision and had an especially enjoyable show.

Sam and I only made one sit-down dining reservation this trip due to both time and financial constraints, and we wanted to pick something new in a park that would afford us the time to have a longer meal. Since we dined at the 50’s Prime Time Cafe last trip, we decided to try Hollywood Studio’s other lower-priced table-service restaurant: The Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater. 

The theming of this restaurant is certainly up to the Disney standard. The food, well, not so much. Over the years, I’ve found that the better the theming, the worse the food. Although neither of us felt that the food was bad here, it was painfully average and certainly not worth the $60 that we spent for a lunch of two burgers and a soda. 

After lunch, we hit Star Tours, which, depending on the video sequence we got, could have proved detrimental to the rest of our day. However, thankfully, we did not receive the floating-in-water experience which always leaves me feeling ill. We were excited that our ride included the newest scenes featuring Darth Vader, the Mandalorian and Grogu, and Ahsoka Tano. 

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent leisurely enjoying some favorites like Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway and Millenium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run. We also checked out some things that we didn’t get a chance to do on our last trip, like the Beauty and the Beast stage show, the One Man’s Dream exhibit, and the Kylo Ren show in Galaxy’s Edge. We enjoyed all three things, especially the Kylo Ren show, which was new to me too. The show, which includes interactions from Kylo Ren as well as some stormtroopers and First Order officers, was well done and entertaining. It was cool to see more free-roaming characters in Disney World, something usually lacking in the Florida parks compared to California.

We used being in Galaxy’s Edge as an excuse to try a Ronto Wrap, which is a well-loved snack in this park. While I liked it, I found it too messy to enjoy more than a bite or two. After our snack break, we snuck in a final viewing of MuppetVision before hopping in line for Rise of the Resistance — this time with the pre-show.  

We went into this trip knowing that we wanted to do Fantasmic, even though neither of us are into the nighttime shows since that’s prime riding time, since we didn’t get a chance to go during our honeymoon. While there were two shows listed, one at 8pm and one at 9:30pm, the park closed at 9pm with an after-hours event starting immediately after, so we weren’t sure if we would be able to attend the later show. A quick Google search confirmed that we would be able to attend the 9:30pm show even though the park would be closed. At around 8:50pm, we made our way over to Sunset Boulevard to get lined up for the show. Line is a generous term for what it was — it was more of a blob mob, but there were cast members offering some level of direction. At 9pm, we began the trek to the theater for the show. I do not exaggerate when I say trek; it’s quite a hike to get to the theater, but there are restrooms and concession stands once you get there. 

Sam and I didn’t even feel that we got there that early, yet we had amazing seats! We were just barely in the splash zone and could see everything very clearly. I’ve always enjoyed Fantasmic, and I’m glad that Sam liked it too. The combination of fireworks, water effects, music, and characters come together in a really beautiful show about the power of imagination. 

I am always worried about exiting the park after nighttime shows as it can be incredibly crowded and difficult to navigate (especially dealing with strollers in the dark). But Disney did a great job directing people out of the theater, and by going a different way than we came in, we actually ended up exiting the park from backstage! This put us right by the Skyliner station for us to go back to our resort. 

Since our big meal of the day had been lunch, we were both hungry when we got back to the hotel. This gave us a good excuse to check out the food cafeteria at the resort. We had enjoyed our meals at our honeymoon resort, the Port Orleans French Quarter, but given that this resort was at a lower price point, we adjusted our expectations accordingly. 

And it’s a good thing we did. The food was not great, but it got the job done. I had the sesame chicken, which came with some overcooked vegetables and rice. It was distinctly average. Sam had an Uncrustable and a side of mac’n’cheese, which again, were pretty average. Overall, you get what you pay for at this resort, and it may be better to just stick with the good ol’ classics like Disney chicken tenders.

DAY 3: ANIMAL KINGDOM & MAGIC KINGDOM AFTER-HOURS EVENT

• 7:30am: Entered Animal Kingdom
• Flight of Passage
• DINOSAUR
• Meet Pocahontas
• Meet Dug & Russel (attempted)
• It’s Tough to be a Bug
• Meet Dug & Russel (successful)
• Expedition Everest
• Lunch at Yak & Yeti Local Cafe Foods
• Festival of the Lion King
• Kilimanjaro Safari
• Meet Moana
• DINOSAUR
• Dinner at Satu’li Canteen
• Bussed over to Magic Kingdom for after-hours event
• 6:50pm: Let into park for after-hours event

We had another early morning at Animal Kingdom, and we entered the park at around 7:30am. While this was when early entry would have started, we were nowhere near being the first guests into the park. As we advised for other parks, it’s always better to arrive earlier than the advertised early entry time. It’s also important to note that unlike other parks, there is no real advantage for non-resorts guests to enter this park early. At the other three parks, non-resort guests are able to access some areas of the park during this early entry time (such as Main Street USA in Magic Kingdom), but in Animal Kingdom, you must check-in with cast members shortly after entering the gates.

Once we were checked-in and over the bridge to Discovery Island, we headed straight to Pandora to get in line for Avatar Flight of Passage. This is one of the best rides in all of Disney World, and the line can get well over an hour during peak times. Well, we knew this was going to be a busy day in Animal Kingdom when we waited around 2 hours for this ride! The ride double-backed all the way to Festival of the Lion King, and that isn’t even part of the regular queue. The line moved pretty well though, and the ride was amazing as usual. 

After that, we headed over to do DINOSAUR, another attraction that’s about to go ‘extinct’! It’s one of our favorites, even though both of us have traumatic histories with the ride from when we were younger. It’s a shame it’s going to be re-themed, as it’s one of the few rides left that’s not originally themed to a movie. It’ll be replaced by an Indiana Jones theme, which will be similar if not identical to the one in Disneyland. The ride was thrilling and seems to get rougher as I get older. 

Our first attempt at meeting Russel and Dug from Up went poorly, as Dug had to step away unexpectedly after some sort of interaction went poorly. We didn’t want to just meet Russell (no offense), so we hopped in line for It’s Tough to be a Bug, hoping that he would be back after the show. This was my first time experiencing this (at least to my recollection), and I am very, very glad that it will be my last. The attraction is certainly not suitable for children, and even as an adult, I found myself terrified. The show uses different effects to simulate sensations, such as bugs crawling around your feet or stingers in your back. Perhaps the most startling to me was the use of heavy fog, which, had I been sitting in the center of the theater, would have probably left me unable to see my own hand in front of my face. I feel very confident that the new Zootopia theme will prove more suitable to almost everyone.

Upon exiting, Dug was back! We got in line and had a great interaction with the two of them. We used this time to take a quick snack break to try out a mango and grenadine slushy and barbacoa beef mac and cheese — both of which were excellent. Then, we were off to Expedition Everest, which had a surprisingly long line. The ride is great, although it’s questionable as to if it’s worth an hour wait. 

We worked up an appetite waiting in line, so we decided to try out Yak & Yeti Local Foods Cafe, a quick service spot with a similar name to the sit-down restaurant nearby (which is one of my favorites). Unfortunately, the name is the only thing these two have in common. We found the food worse than average and exorbitantly expensive. For an order of firecracker shrimp, vegetable tikka masala, and two egg rolls, it cost us a whopping $42. We won’t be back, especially when there are amazing counter service spots in Animal Kingdom (Satu’li Canteen, Flame Tree Barbecue). 

After lunch, we spent time in Africa. We went to the Festival of the Lion King show, which is a must-do for me every time I’m in Animal Kingdom. The performances are great, and it’s a beautiful show full of talented people. We also went on the Kilimanjaro Safari, a truck ride through Disney’s savanna, where animals freely roam around. We were lucky enough to see a lot of animals, including a giraffe who caused a traffic jam, but not lucky enough to see more than one hippo! The safari has great re-ride-ability and feels like a different experience each time you go.

Sam is trying to meet as many characters as possible to get their autograph for his book, and Moana is one we didn’t see on our last trip. While you can meet her in Epcot, she has a more “permanent” meet and greet in Animal Kingdom since she’s there for the whole day. We hopped in line to meet her, but ended up waiting about 30 minutes, which is a much longer line than usual for this kind of thing. We had quick interaction with an (understandably) tired Moana as her second to last meeting of the day, and then we were off on our final ride ever on DINOSAUR before heading back to Pandora for dinner. 

Thankfully, our dinner made up for our lunch. Satu’li Canteen is a solid staple in Animal Kingdom, and their variety of bowls offer a filling and nutritious meal. Sam went with the classic mixed bowl of steak and chicken with some toppings on a bed of lo mein noodles. I tried something different, blue noodles topped with raw tuna poke and an assortment of vegetables. While I usually prefer rice with poke, this was very good! We’ll definitely be back.  

We ate an earlier dinner since we had tickets to attend an after-hours event at Magic Kingdom and could start entering the park at 7pm. We bussed over and were in line to enter the park well before 7pm, and they allowed us to enter a little before 7pm. We had a great time, and we’ll have a detailed review of this paid event up shortly! In essence, from park close until 1am, almost every Magic Kingdom attraction is open to guests who paid for this special event. Since we had very limited time this trip, we took full advantage of this event and feel it was definitely worth it.

DAY 4: MAGIC KINGDOM & DEPARTURE

• 8:50am: Arrived in park
• Jungle Cruise
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (NEW!)
• Tom Sawyer Island
• Lunch at Columbia Harbor House
• Mickey’s Philharmagic
• Walt Disney World Railroad
• Meet Anastasia and Drisella
• PeopleMover
• 3:10pm: Exited park

After our late night at Magic Kingdom, we “slept in” until around 7am, when we needed to try to get into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure’s virtual queue (another success!), and we were out the door about an hour later. When we got into the parks, we headed straight for Jungle Cruise, since that was one ride that we never went on during the after-hours event. We were briefly sidetracked by the spring roll cart, and since it has notoriously elusive hours, we had to stop. We tried both the pepperoni and the cheeseburger spring rolls and enjoyed them both. Then we hit Pirates of the Caribbean, and since we had an early boarding group for Tiana’s ride, we hung around Adventureland/Frontierland and bought time by trying out some of Tiana’s beignets, which were warm and covered in powder sugar and honey. While I preferred these ones, Sam’s favorites are still the Mickey shaped ones at the Port Orleans French Quarter resort. 

Then, it was time for us to finally ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure! Sam and I both loved Splash Mountain, and so we were excited to see how it felt with the re-theming. The ride was great, and I can’t wait to ride again to catch anything I missed. The ride track is the same, just with new animatronics. The theming is immersive and fun, and I think it’s just as enjoyable as the original. 

While neither of us were that wet afterward, we decided to pay a visit to Tom Sawyer’s Island as an excuse to walk around in the sun and dry off as well as to bid farewell to this attraction. While Disney hasn’t announced when it will be closing for good in order to make room for a Cars expansion to Frontierland and a Villians land, we’re not sure if it will be open on our next visit. 

My one and only time on the island was quite a few years ago, when my family ended up confused and lost, unable to find a way off. Needless to say, I haven’t been back. And I was proud that even after 3 days in Magic Kingdom on our honeymoon, we didn’t make any return visits to the infamous island. However, with the closing of the attraction, I relented and agreed to make a final visit with Sam. 

Our raft landed ashore, and we were off and exploring. The island seemed smaller than I remember, but there was still plenty to wander around and check out. While this wouldn’t be for everyone, and certainly would never make my ‘must-do’ list, it was an amazing feat of imagineering. The attention to detail was incredible, and if more Americans were into exploring caves and wandering around a fort, then I think there would be a greater appreciation for this 1973 attraction.  

After exploring Tom Sawyer’s Island, we had worked up quite an appetite. On our way to lunch, we stopped by “Ye Olde Christmas Shop” to pick up an ornament, one of our favorite affordable souvenirs. On our way out, we were blocked for a few minutes by a character cavalcade, but then we were off to the Columbia Harbor House!

Although Columbia Harbor House was a favorite of ours the last time we were here, we left very disappointed after this meal. In 2023, we shared the trio platter (fried fish, fried shrimp, chicken tenders, fries, and hushpuppies) and were satiated. This year, knowing that this would be our big meal of the day, we each decided to get our own. And it’s a very good thing we did. The portions definitely seemed smaller, although the quality was still very good (for fast food, of course).

After lunch, we just sort of moseyed around Fantasyland, hitting up Mickey’s Philharmagic, trying out some sweets at Gaston’s Tavern, and taking a ride on the Walt Disney World Railroad. We also carved out time to meet Cinderella’s stepsisters, especially since on our honeymoon, only Anastasia showed up! They’re a great character duo, and we had a funny interaction with them. 

It was getting close to when we had to start heading back to the airport, but we’ve started a tradition of riding the PeopleMover to close out our trips. It’s one of our favorite rides, and it’s just a great way to reflect on the memories we made. 

We strolled down Main Street to exit the park, hopped on a bus back to Pop Century to pick up our bags, and then we were in a Lyft back to MCO. Our flight departed Orlando at 7:30pm, and we arrived back in Pittsburgh in two hours to a beautiful climate of 22 degrees… 

We know price can be a huge factor in people’s decision to vacation at Disney, so in full transparency, here’s how much we spent on this trip (not including flights):

Hotel & Tickets (2 guests, 4-day, no park hopper): $1,925.82

Lyft to / from MCO: $87.27

Special Late Night Event: $394.06

Food: $420.90

Miscellaneous (Ornament Souvenir): $26.61

Total = $2,854.66

Overall, even though we were only in Walt Disney World for a few days, we walked away feeling like we accomplished everything we wanted to do. This trip definitely scratched our Disney itch, but I can’t lie and say I’m not already thinking about our next one!

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU:

What did you think of our itinerary? Did we miss out on anything in the parks? Would you ever do all four parks in four days? Is there anything you want us to do a deeper dive on? Let us know in the comments!