Awwwwwwwwww yeah, you guys.
It’s time for another blog series chronicling the awesome stuff we do.
And, like, this awesome stuff? This awesome stuff is the awesome stuff you all come here for. This is a legit Bonafide Walt Disney World trip!
And? AND? We are celebrating all kinds of things on this trip. Owen’s graduation! Myles turning 21! Our 22nd wedding anniversary!
And like I said, this is a whole actual Walt Disney World trip. No cruises. No other locations. And thing is 12 days. This trip is JUST Walt Disney World. We haven’t done a trip like this in like 3 years. So it’s kind of a big deal. I think. I’m excited. And I hope you all are excited too!
Are you excited?
GET EXCITED!!!
OK yeah, I guess I pushed that a little too far.
But yeah, a 12-day Walt Disney World trip. And I think I will handle this series like I did the one three years ago where I didn’t really post all the details up front and just sort of let the trip unfold. Because this one spans multiple hotels, obviously multiple parks, and multiple friends. So not posting the details here will be more fun for you, the reader, I think.
And less work for me, the writer, I also think.
And while I don’t want to give away any major details at this point, I should mention this trip took place through the end of May into June. Which is important to note. On account of it was hot AF. I mean, it was all “oh when did they move Walt Disney World to the depths of Hell” hot at times.
It was hot, mofos.
Our 2025 “Celebrating Everything” Walt Disney World Trip: Day 1 but hold on back up let’s talk quickly about the day before also
Right, yeah. Let’s back up a little bit before we get to the official Day 1. Let’s talk about Day 0 real quick.
Day 0 was a Friday, which meant I spent a good chunk of it working. Which is a big whomp-a-domp.
But before work? Nickie and I had some pampering to get all up in. Which is a big yay.
Nickie was getting a mani-pedi while I was opting for a spa pedicure. Because I take care of Wayne.
- Trigger warning: If feet gross you out, feel free to skip past the next pictures.
- Fetish warning: If feet are your thing, I mean. Enjoy. Judgement-free zone here, freak.
Because guys, look at these tootsies.
Here is a close up of mine to really get you that whole glitter experience. I deserve to sparkle too, you know.
I will say though. I went into that spa pedicure situation fully expecting some hot paraffin. Especially on account of I asked the girl if it included paraffin and she said it did. When it ended, I asked, “oh no paraffin” and she answered that they don’t have that and she was sorry she didn’t tell me before.
But I mean, she didn’t just, like, not tell me. She actually did tell me it would happen.
This btw? This is not the last time we get conned in this post. Straight up suckas we are.
Still though. The nails were on point.
And I like getting pedicures with Nickie. Because we seem all posh and what not. Like we are on Sex and the City or some shizz.
I am SUCH a Miranda though.
Nickie is a Charlotte. Obvs.
Obvs.
After getting our nails did, we grabbed some breakfast sandwiches for us and the boys and headed back home to – womp – work. Thankfully for me, I had been wrapping my stuff up and handing things off all week so my day was mainly just making sure everything was in order. My team at work is incredible and my work is big on ensuring we all enjoy our time off so I felt pretty good about making the break. Plus, my OOO.
Love.
And while, of course, we had to do some last-minute packing and what not, we also had something super fun planned for the night. We had opening night tickets to see the live-action Lilo & Stitch movie!
But since our theater didn’t have any sort of cardboard standee up, the only picture I got of the experience was my Long Island Iced Tea and Nickie’s white wine.
But I will say we kind of loved the movie. I have been iffy on the live-actions given they’ve had some great ones (like The Jungle Book or Cinderella) but they have also had some craptacular entries as well (see Pinocchio or Dumbo). But this one hit right – they hit most of the right notes from the original but still added enough “new” to feel fresh. The actors were, for the most part, great stuff and I mean – I laughed, I cried. It was a pretty great way to kick off our trip.
And Stitch was intensely cute.
Plus, I mean. We are kind of real big fans of Lilo & Stitch. I mean, we named our dogs after them. So.
But ok, enough of this Day 0 nonsense. Onto Day 1.
It was a Saturday.
And yeah, man. It was Day 1.
Which means…
We were up on Day 1 at around 7AM-ish. We weren’t leaving until like 8:45 but being that we had people staying at our house to watch the pups (shout-out to Nannie, Nonnie, and Papa), we had to strip and remake the beds and do some final cleaning around the house to make sure everything was set for them.
And we of course had to say goodbye to these two cutie-dooties.
Stitch was VERY put out by this whole situation.
And I mean, Lilo was not a fan either. Fun fact? Lilo usually throws up at least once when she starts sensing we are going away. This time? She threw up when we brought the suitcases up and then she did so again while my mother-in-law was watching her. She like…REALLY likes us.
At around 8:45, we brought out suitcases out to the curb to try and stop the torture while we waited for our ride. But Stitch continued to not enjoy himself.
They really don’t make it easy.
We were going to miss them, but we knew they would be in good hands. So we waited out on the curb dealing high levels of anticipation.
Our driver pulled up soon enough and look guys – it’s Mikey!!
I know you guys have met Mikey before, but for those that don’t know, Mikey is my niece’s (Steph’s) husband and father to Sophia and Scarlett and like an awesome person also. He not only generously offered to drive us to the airport but he did so wearing a Mickey t-shirt and blaring Disney music. Dude is the best.
And hey, spoiler alert? This may not be the last time you see Mikey in this blog series.
We got to the airport at a little after 9:00 and made it through bag drop off and security super quickly. We were on our way to our gate by 9:30. And as we were making our way, Nickie from behind me let me know that I missed a spot when I was shaving my head so I had a little stripe of hair that was longer than the rest of my head.
To which I said, “Thank you. I really appreciate you pointing that out and it in no way has caused me any sort of anxiety or tapped into any longstanding and deeply rooted neuroses.”
…
…
You know that is not AT ALL how I reacted. In fact, I immediately started snapping pictures of the back of my head, completely freaking out, because there was no way I could fix said stripe until we were in Orlando.
Thankfully, we had a $50 gift card my mom had given me for my birthday, which we could use at one of the airport gift shops to buy this situation.
My first souvenir! A hat!
From Boston!
I’m the best.
Since security was such a easy breezy beautiful covergirl situation, we had some time before our flight. So we figured we could grab some breakfast. And we figured we could continue the lately-disappointing Boston sports theme while we were at it.
Yup, it’s the Logan Airport Terminal A Bruins Bar!
Let’s see if the food is as bad as the team was last season!
Spoiler alert – IT IS!
But hey let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s first see how good we all look.
Dang, we ARE an attractive bunch.
The experience here started off kind of oddly. Our first server just kind of seemed like he hated working there, I think? He showed up to our table seeming kind of annoyed he had to take our orders. Which felt like a really great start to the meal. He did take our drink orders eventually though. So I mean.
Though when I asked him what he had on draft, he said “lager.” When I asked him what kind of lager, he in a very “doy” way, said “SAM ADAMS.”
I don’t know man. This guy was srsly not having us.
The boys wanted Starbucks so they walked down the corridor a piece.
A piece? Is that the thing people say. They walked “a piece”? I dunno. I am not even gonna Google it. We are sticking with “a piece.”
And while they were gone, our drinks came. I had the aforementioned “lager” given its rave reviews and Nickie ordered a Sauvignon Blanc.
I also did ask Myles and Owen to get me a Brown Sugar Shaken Espresso as well. Which here it is. And which it was lovely.
Owen got a Vanilla Frapuccino with Caramel and Myles got the Horchata Shaken Espresso.
Now ok.
Let’s back this all up a second.
When we were ordering our drinks, we asked the waiter if when we did order food, some of us could get breakfast and some of us could get lunch. He informed us breakfast ended at 10:30 and then people could order lunch. It was like 10:10 at this point. So we said ok – some of us would get breakfast now and then maybe order lunch for others when we hit the 10:30 mark.
The kids came back and we made a plan – Myles and I both wanted breakfast while Nickie and Owen wanted some more lunchy stuff so once we saw the waiter, we would put Phase 1 into action. Then 10:20 rolled around and it had seemed our waiter had by that point just kind of stopped coming over to our table. Dude had us on a pay-no-mind list.
So we ended up flagging down another waiter to see if we could order some breakfast before they locked up all the eggs. This guy wasn’t all that excited to be there either.
Oh, how do I know?
He told us. When we asked him if he could bring us some silverware and napkins, he told us he was really tired.
So, I mean.
But at least he did take our order. Myles and I both ordered the Breakfast Burrito (Scrambled Eggs, Avocado, Sausage, Cheddar Cheese, and Black Corn Salsa in a Flour Tortilla) with breakfast potatoes.
Which actually ended up being a pretty good burrito. Everything had a good flavor to it and the avocado was a nice touch. Plus, I am a legit sucker when French fries masquerade as breakfast potatoes. Which these were doing hardcore. IYKYK.
Also being that we were close enough to lunch time, we were also able to order a couple pretzels (served with tangy mustard and cheese sauce) for the table.
I mean, it’s a pretzel or whatever but it was good. Didn’t taste stale or anything, nice and soft and both the cheese and mustard were tasty.
So yeah, I mean the food was fine at Bruins Bar. But that service? Woof man. Rough stuff.
Almost as rough as the Bruins were this season.
Hey-oh.
We still did have time though and both Nickie and Owen wanted lunch somewhere else so we walked to the other end of the Terminal A hallway to the Harpoon Tap Room.
While I wasn’t hungry at this point, I was feeling a bit parched. Hopefully this tap room has something to satiate my…
Oh, look. Beer!
Yeah I am pretty sure that’s a UFO White? I honestly don’t fully remember what I ordered but I think that’s what I got. I remember thinking I was being a simple man that day. And UFO white is a simple nice white ale.
Thing was Wayne-approved.
For lunch, Owen got the New England Clam Chowder.
And Nickie got the Grilled Cheese and Tomato Bisque.
Both of which looked real good. And I do have to mention our waitress was awesome here – super attentive and just such a breath of fresh air after the Bruins Bar situation. So I mean pro tip? If you find yourself in Logan’s Terminal A and have a choice? Harpoon Tap Room over Bruins Bar.
And while we were at Harpoon, we all got to open our airport bags!! For those that don’t know, we have a tradition on these trips of putting these bags together for each other that contain special little surprises we may want on the plane or during the trip. Because I mean…we like gifts.
We LOVE gifts.
Here’s a look at what was in my bag –
A personalized tumbler, some Liquid IV, a couple of foot masks and eye masks, and of course some candy.
Oh and also – we all got out new MagicBand+’s in our bags. Lookit mine!
Hope it doesn’t look too goofy.
Here’s a shot of all of our swank new bands.
And on the side of our bags?
“Celebrate good times, come on.” – Kool & the Gang
After we finished up, it was time to make our way over to our gate. And there she is out there, just sitting there, waiting to take us to Disney World!
But I don’t know you guys. It looks kind of plane.
Yeah, I know. I make that joke in literally every travel day post.
Deal with it.
We boarded at close to 12:15 and as I was walking down the aisle, wearing my Walt Disney World t-shirt and sporting my Mickey Mouse toes, a guy sitting down asked me, “Going to Disney World” and I responded, “How could you tell?” which elicited a slight smirk. But as I was continuing down the aisle, I had a total “jerk store” moment…
…and thought of such a better response. I should have said, in total deadpan, “No. Funeral.” Man, I hope I get to use that line later.
Foreshadowing.
We were in our seats by like 12:30ish, Nickie and the boys in one row and me all by my lonsesome across the aisle. But score you guys? No one sat in the middle seat between me and the woman sitting by the window, whom I totally high-fived when the cabin doors closed.
And since I brought my own headphones, I dove right into a movie. For this flight, I landed on Sing Sing, which is a movie I had been wanting to see for a while but never got around to it.
But man, I took wayyy too long to watch this masterpiece. An incredible film. I cannot believe this thing wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. I will say though – I def was just sort of sitting there crying in my seat by myself. Which is fine. I do it all the time. But still, thought I would mention it.
Myles, I believe, watched Goodfellas and Owen watched Interstellar.
Nickie drank wine and feared for her life.
She’s not super excited about flying. Is what I am saying to you now.
I am pretty sure, though, that she did end up spilling some of her wine on Owen. So I mean, that helped pass the time.
I opted for a Coke Zero on this flight, which paired nicely with my complimentary teeny-tiny Sun Chips.
Sing Sing took up most of my flight, but since I still had a little bit of time before we landed, I also threw on A Goofy Movie! Which obvs matched my band.
And I also, with A Goofy Movie in the background, read some of my book – The Tommyknockers by Stephen King.
As I have mentioned on previous posts, I have been trying to get through all of King’s novels in chronological order by date of release. The Tommyknockers puts me at 1987 so I think I should finish close to retirement age?
We ended up landing in Orlando a little bit early – around 3:35. When we landed, I did end up talking to the woman in the window seat. She asked me if I was going to Walt Disney World.
To which I replied.
…
…
“No, funeral” with a completely straight face.
She responded by telling me how sorry she was.
The joke went over great is what I am saying to you now.
But I did tell her I was joking and we laughed a little. She was super nice, flying in for her son’s wedding and she actually ended up tagging along with us to baggage as she didn’t fully know her way around MCO and I mean…we kind of do. Lol.
By 3:50, we were on…
FIRST RIDE OF THE TRIP!!
Yup, the MCO monorail y’all. Which brought us to the main hub. And look guys – it’s the MCO Hyatt. Remember when we stayed there before our Wish cruise?
Like I said, we went to baggage claim, grabbed our bags, and then headed over to the busses. On account of this time around, we booked the Mears Connect bus to take us to and from the airport. To try and at least sort of mimic the Magical Express of the olden days.
*Taps plays in the background*
I miss you, Magical Express.
But yeah. Mears.
Let’s get Disney’ing suckas.
And look guys – just like on Magical Express, they play cartoons!
Except instead of Disney cartoons like the one where Mickey has a seal in his bathtub, they play cartoons with more of a public domain feel, like the odd Felix the Cat cartoon above.
But still. Cartoons!
And though? They do have some trivia!
Funny story – I used to think Mears was associated with Disney and that “Mears” was a compressed way to say “Mickey Ears.”
I thought this when I was a full-grown adult.
I’m the best.
After a little under an hour, we saw something kind of super-dee-duper exciting on the horizon.
ITS DIZNEEEE WORLDZZZ!!!111ONE ONE
Since we didn’t take the Express bus, we did have to make a couple stops before we reached our destination, including a stop at Pop Century.
But at around 5:30PM, we did reach our home for the night. So I mean, it was maybe like an hour and a half ride in total so not that bad. And we did have Felix the Cat. So.
But yeah you guys – we made it! And our home for the night? Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge!
And yup – literally for the night. We actually have three different hotels on this trip. And this one is just for tonight. We have another (which I will keep a surprise) for the next two nights and then one for the remainder of the trip. Initially, this trip was going to be shorter and we just sort of kept adding days up front. Because that’s kind of what we always do. Add days.
This lobby you guys. It always wows.
Our room was ready and we checked in through the app so we were able to go right up.
We have arrived.
Get ready for some poorly-taken room photos you guys!
Yeah, my photos aren’t the best I guess. But it was a really nice room y’all. And while we did not do savanna view this time around as we had for other trips, we did still have a nice view of the Uzima Springs pool.
And of the hotel itself.
We had dinner reservations tonight so we didn’t spend too much time in the room. Just kind of dropped our bags off and headed out.
And I mean, being that we were in Walt Disney World, we wanted to have the full Disney experience so we walked through the Zawadi Marketplace gift shop. And look, here is a bunch of Stitch graduation stuff Owen didn’t want.
Our dinner reservation was at Animal Kingdom and we were on our bus to the park by 6:15PM.
We were at the park by 6:20.
And like, wait. What? Did we have a park ticket or something?
Jeesh. Nosy much.
But no, we did not. Because we had reservations at Rainforest Café!
Which yeah, I guess we were excited about? There was a time when I would not have been caught dead at a Rainforest Café at WDW. On account of like we had one at the mall like 20 minutes from us at home. But now that these are an endangered species? It’s all of a sudden a treat.
Plus, it’s hella kitsch.
We walked up to the front and put our names in. The hostess said she would announce when our table was ready so we did some explorin’.
These barstools tho. So funny. No butts about it.
We spent some time walking around the outside area, which was pretty neat actually. It was a little rainy out so there was no one out there eating, but I loved the theming of this whole section. It was…
…
…
Wild.
Sorry. I just figured like let’s get that out of the way.
We also, of course, spent some time in the gift shop. And I found a book I wanna start after I finish the Tommyknockers.
But then I opened it and I dunno…
Feels kind of pandaring to its readers to me.
At 6:30, we heard the announcement. Our table was ready! Let’s go!
We sat near these hep cats.
Which worked out, because the tiger all the way on the far right sounded just like our dog, Stitch, when he roared.
Oh, speaking of our dogs, Nonnie sent us some pictures of them chillin while we were enjoying dinner.
Lilo…
…and Stitch.
And bonus, a picture of her dog, Abby, who also happens to be Stitch’s sister.
For my drink, I ordered the Salt Life.
Mainly because there were Gummy Bears in little Peach Ring lifesavers.
And I wanted to save them.
And then eat them.
I am their God.
It was pretty yumtown though too. I mean, it was sweet but I never say “it was sweet” as a negative about something.
Now, I would like to just call your attention to the fact that I, and everyone else who ordered drinks, simply ordered drinks to drink. No other sort of request was made. Just keep that in your back pocket. We just ordered some drinks.
OK, moving on.
We also ordered, to start, the Awesome Appetizer Adventure (Chimi-Cha-Chas, Spinach & Artichoke Dip, Cheese Sticks, and Chicken Strips.) Now, there is an option to add a side of St. Louis Style Pork Spareribs for an additional 12 bucks. Which, honestly, we were planning to do. But when we were ordering it, the waiter casually said we would love it, especially the ribs. Like before we ordered the ribs.
He was a sly one for sure. This btw factors into the drink conversation we are gonna have later.
Anyway though – here is the Appetizer Adventure. You know, the Awesome one.
It was a good platter for sure. The Chimi-Cha-Chas, Spinach and Artichoke Dip, and yes – the ribs – were the standouts.
Let’s move onto the Mains.
Myles went with the Bourbon Grilled Meatloaf (Bourbon BBQ Glazed Grilled Meatloaf, Caramelized Onions, Mashed Potato Casserole, Hot Honey Roasted Carrots, and Crispy Onions).
Owen got the Beastly Burger. Which usually comes with a bunch of stuff on top. Like, normal stuff like tomatoes and onions. But Owen just got his with Cheese and nothing else, And a side of fries.
Nickie kind of cobbled together her own sort of dish with the waiter, getting grilled chicken with a side of grilled chicken. But one of the sides of chicken had some balsamic glaze on it and it came with some pasta as well.
I, meanwhile, got the Bimini Chicken Sandwich (Caribbean Fried Chicken, Hot Honey Drizzle, and Coconut Curry Tropical Slaw), with a side of Fries.
And, like, everything was kind of delicious. We all liked what we got tonight. Though I will say that Bimini Chicken sandwich surprisingly carried a high level of spice. I love hot honey, but this thing had me sweating a bit.
We were all INTENSELY full after this meal so we opted to skip dessert.
OK, so. When the waiter came over with our check, he told us we could pick up our souvenir glasses up front.
We were all…
We deffo didn’t order our drinks with souvenir glasses but we said, “well maybe all the drinks come with souvenir glasses automatically.” But looking at the receipt and seeing a $16 Bud Light on there kind of had us thinking otherwise.
Dude straight-up conned us into a FULL SET of Rainforest Café glasses. And we had to go get them up front.
Well done, waiter.
To be fair, we have used the pint glasses we got quite a bit since we have been home. So I mean, whatever. We actually like the glasses. So we win.
We paid our bill, picked up our glasses, and headed back out to the bus stop. Our bus back to Animal Kingdom Lodge showed up at 8:07.
We were back at the hotel by 8:12.
And we still had some night ahead of us. So we floated the idea of maybe heading down to the hot tub. Me and Nickie were in. And Owen said he would like to as well. Myles wanted to chill in the room a bit.
Hot Tub Time Machine!
We probably spent like 10-15 minutes in that hot tub but Owen and I wanted to try out the waterslide. So we made a plan with Nickie to take a ride and then meet her over at the Uzima Springs Pool Bar. The waterslide was obvs fun. But this bar? Also fun.
And when we got over there, Nickie said Myles was on his way down due to the promise of waterslide sliding. Dude loves slidin.
While we were waiting for him to make his way down, I ordered myself a Tito’s and Soda.
Nickie got a Captain’s Mai Tai (Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum, Bols Amaretto, and Tropical Juices topped with a float of Myer’s Original Dark Rum).
Once Myles showed up, Owen and I joined him for another ride down the slide. He and Owen then walked over to The Mara to get some dessert. They returned with some tried-and-true Zebra Domes and a Coffee Brownie situation.
TBH, he actually wanted one of those Mickey Frosted Chocolate Chip situations. Like one of these (pictured from a previous trip):
Which is a pretty legendary dessert. I mean look at all that frosting. But the brownie was very good as well. And the zebra domes obvs slayed.
Oh for those that don’t know, Zebra Domes are basically a white cake, covered with a dome of Amarula Liqueur mousse, and coated in a white chocolate ganache with a dark chocolate drizzle.
Again. Slay.
While Nickie and I ordered another drink at the bar, the boys played some ping pong. And they were not in any way competitive and just played a nice friendly game.
Ha, just kidding. They were trying to destroy each other. As they should.
So yeah, the first hot tub we hit was kind of to the left of the pool bar but there was another hot tub over behind the water slide we wanted to try out. Here is me. Trying it out.
And here are the boys. Also trying it out.
Love ending the night with a soak in the hot tub. Especially after a day of travel. Travel days are always so like hectic and what not so its nice to have some time to relax.
At around 10:30, we figured it was time to flamin-go to bed.
And yeah, that’s like Day 1 you guys. Pretty fun first day, eh?
Well wait until Day 2 when we…well….we kind of do more of the same. But there are friends!!! And we are at a different resort.
See ya then!
Next Post – Day 2
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