The Walt Disney World - Second Experience with Kids

Boys are growing so fast and with a blink of an eye, one will be 10 and another will be 8 later this year. Nevertheless, it's never too old for a visit to the Disney World. Nearly 5 years ago, we took the boys to their first Disney trip; to refresh their memories, we've decided it's time to pay another visit. Didi was only two years old and we figure he doesn't remember much so...here we go.

As usual, we want to avoid the crowds and cooler weather in Spring. This time around 4 days 4 nights: flew in to MCO Orlando airport on Wednesday night and return home on Sunday night. We checked the crowd calendar and it showed low to average crowd.

It turns out the crowd calendar is no longer accurate since Covid. More on that later.

Theme Park Tickets
Disney theme park ticket is notoriously expensive. These are the three websites we used to compare Disney World tickets.

- Disney World Official Website
- Undercover Tourist - Disney World
- Tickets at Work

Or you can get the ticket at the gate which is usually more expensive. The ticket price varies for different dates and other factors. More expensive ticket for 10+ (adult) ticket, additional cost for park hopper, reduced average daily price if longer trip, Florida residents/military discounts and etc.

Here is an example for 4 days Disney Theme Park base tickets for 2 adult and 2 kids (under 10)
- Disney World - 2 adult ($454.60 each) + 2 kids ($436.98 each) + tax ($115.60) = $1899.06
- Undercover Tourist - 2 adult ($429.56 each) + 2 kids ($413.19 each) + taxes (included) = $1850.22
- Tickets at Work - 2 adult ($429.91 each) + 2 kids ($405.33 each) + tax ($154.82) = $1825.30

In our case, we got our tickets from Tickets at Work since it also came up slightly cheaper among the three.

Some people are very creative when it comes to lowering the cost of ticket price. For example, use a credit card that give higher cash back, buy Disney gift card from a store with promotion/discount and use the Disney gift card to buy the theme park ticket. Or even stack multiple cashback offers.

At the time of writing, one may potentially use a cashback portal (eg. TopCashBack, cashback 4% or first transaction 10% to Slide app) to another reward app (eg. Slide app, 4% cashback to Target) to buy Disney gift card at a store (eg. Target) with a reward credit card (eg. Capital One Venture X with 2% reward). The creativity is amazing :) We weren't aware of this option when we bought our tickets so just speaking theoretically here. Also our 2 cents. Disneyworld planning could get pretty crazy. So understand your level of risk/stress tolerence if you are thinking to try certain cost-cutting method that unfamiliar to you.

In addition to the Disney park admission ticket, visitor is now required to make a park reservation via the Disney Park Pass System. So, make sure you do that as well. More info on the Disney park reservation.

Accommodation
We stayed at Holiday Inn Orlando-Disney Springs Area with IHG free night certificate. We chose this hotel because it's walking distance to the Disney Spring and it offers complimentary shuttle to all Disney parks. Reservation is required. Upon hotel reservation made, you could call the hotel for a redemption code to book the free shuttle. After much research, the shuttle of this hotel is by far one of the best with frequent departure and return time where it runs every hour. There were many hotels used to do the same. But after Covid, it seems that now most hotels contracted out the shuttle service to only run a couple or so times a day.

The shuttle buses do run promptly so be sure to keep that in mind. Another perks that attracted us to this hotel is the Early Theme Park Entry benefit, which allows 30-minute early entry to ANY theme park. Be sure to ask for a voucher just in case your reservation couldn't linked up to the Disney Parks passes. The hotel does have a resort fee of $35/night and we were informed that even with free nights booking, it's not waivable and that we're responsible to pay the fee and taxes. However, since we booked through IHG with the free night certificate; during checkout, the front desk did not ask for payments of the resort fees. Another thing to keep in mind is that this hotel does not offer free breakfast, but kids 12 and under do eat for free with 1 adult purchase up to 2 free kids meal. We took advantages of this for some breakfasts and dinner when we were too tired to dine out.

Here is the list of hotels that offer benefit of early magic hours. Check the official Disney world hotels list AND the list of participating hotels. Be sure to check with the hotel the process of getting early entry pass and the shuttle service schedule. Things could have changed.

Transportation
We flied to MCO Orlando airport with Southwest airline to take advantage of our Southwest companion pass. We used our Southwest Rapid Rewards points; 3813 points (~$52 cash ticket) to MCO Orlando and 6901 points (~$94 cash ticket) back from MCO for each adult ticket and kid tagged along as companion for free.

Our hotel shuttle bus ran hourly from our hotel to different Disnay parks. The shuttle bus is a double decker and it also picked up other passengers from 2 or 3 more hotels nearby. Might as well take this time to do some planning with the kids.

We took uber from the airport to the hotel. We used the free hotel shuttle to the Disney Parks. We missed the bus during our visit to the Magic Kingdom due to the Disney Monorail were having technical issue and not in service that night right when the theme park were about to close. It was so chaotic as everyone scrambled to find ways out to the transportation center. Disney could do a better job for this type of interruption to its transportation service. We ended up calling uber for a ride back to the hotel from the transportation center.

Genie, Genie+, Lightning Pass
A lot has changed since the last time we visited. Recall that Disney ticket passes come with 3 free fast passes for each theme park, where you could reserve ahead of time for the rides. They've completely gotten rid of fast pass, replacing by Genie plus (Genie+) with a fee of $15/user/park. Genie app is different than Genie+, Genie is an app that facilitates Disney experience such as wait time, food ordering, and much more. Genie+ is a service whereby you pay a fee to reserve a time for an attraction. It appears this was changed sometimes in 2021 during Covid time.

Some popular rides are not included in Genie+ and Disney came up with more money making mechanism called "lightning pass." Lightning pass is only available on few attractions for a fee that is specific for that single attraction. For example, at the Disney Animal Kingdom, you would need to purchase a lightning pass for the Avatar Flight of Passage to get on its fast lane.

We weren't aware of this change and also thought the park wasn't crowed as indicated on crowd calendar. We did not pay for the Genie+ service and hence find that this have made our experience at Disney much unpleasant. The average wait time for popular ride is about an hour, given a non-peak time, it's pretty insane. For every 10 or more Genie+ visitors, only one family from the regular lane is allowed to admit to the attraction. It is unfortunate that Disney took away the fast pass that was once free to all pass holders.

Luckily, we still managed to get onto most of the rides we wanted. Here are some highlights.

Animal Kingdom

We went to Animal Kingdom first. One of the reason is because we really want to go the Avatar ride. It wasn't there when we visited last time and we have heard from friends that this is one of the top attraction. It is located on the pandora - the world of avatar.

There are two popular rides. Avatar Flight of Passage is pretty cool one but extremely long line. We suggest going to this one as early as possible. And next to it is the Na'vi River Journey.

There are shows that we like. The UP! A great bird adventure at Asian, where they show different species of birds up close and also birds performing some cool tricks. Another grant show is the Festival of the Lion King at Africa. There is also kite shows from time to time at Discovery River where you can view anywhere around the lake.

These two shows have a designated show time. Just keep in mind there are limited seats especially the lion king show. We arrived about 10 minutes and were very lucky to get in.

kids love rides. There is the Kilimanjaro Safari ride at Africa and Kali Rapid River ride at Asia. The DINASOUR ride was pretty exciting given it was riding in the dark with dinosaur!

Be warn that you could get pretty wet on the kali rapid river ride, but it is fun! Some parents put raining coats on the kids or themselves :)

Back to the baby at Dinoland. TriceraTop spin and Boneyard. Kids only rode the TriceraTop once and felt bored :) but spent quick sometimes playing at the Boneyard.

That concluded our Animal Kingdom visit. Animal Kingdom closes the earliest among the four parks. We were tired and ended our day by getting our dinner at the hotel with kids eat free perks. Food was pretty good.

Magic Kingdom
A lof of families come to Magic Kingdom for all the Mickey, Donalds, Goofy and shows. Apparently not for our 7 and 9 years old kids. In fact, we almost spent entire day for rides. There are tons of rides on this park so proper planning is very important. We weren't really able to take advantage of the early entry pass as our hotel shuttle first need to take us to the Transportation and Ticket Center, and then we have to take the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. By the time we arrived, we entered the park pretty much the same time with the rest of the crowd. However, we went straight to one of the very popular ride, Space Moutains at Tomorrowland.

The line already start building up, but the wait was about 30+ minutes before we get on the ride, which is not too bad. The ride was fantastic. Kids love it and we actually went back for second time later at night right before we leave the park.

Next was the Buzz Lightyear Spin next to it. The older kid still remembered this ride and they love shooting.

Didi was too young to ride on Tomorrowland Speedway last time. Finally he got the chance to do it this time!.

We headed up to Fantasyland next. Took The Barnstormer ride. Daddy can tell it is not a crazy ride, but mommy bailed out. Gege was brave enough to ride on his own and this is didi face.

Here we go! And when it finished, both the kids want to do more, typical...

Fantasyland have quite a few rides like Peter Pan's Flight, Under the Sea-Journey Of the Little Mermaid, it's a small word, adventures with Winnie the pooh.

We did skip the Dumbo ride.. The kids have grown up and don't really like those 'baby ride' anymore. Proof here..

:) Only reason we did this was because we were waiting for our food and there wasn't a long line.. Talking about food, there are now new options for mobile checkout where you can order food through phone without waiting in the line. However, not all dining places offer that so do lookup for the mobile checkout sign in the Disney map or at the dining place. We like this option.

When the order is ready, it sends a notification to the phone to pick up the food at a certain counter. The dine-in restaurant only let you enter when your food is ready to be picked up. Hungry kids.

More rides at the Adventureland and Frontierland. We like big thunder mountain railroad, pirates of the caribbean and jungle cruise. Jungle cruise ride line was brutal..

Ok. We did saw a small parade while we were on the way to some ride. Now our Magic Kingdom visit is complete :)

We saw the spectacular fireworks while we were on a ride, and also run (for fun since we were following some funny couples) to the space mountain ride while others were still contemplating the fireworks that just finished. Tips, this is the time where all rides have the lowest crowd. The space mountain at this time were filled with all the exciting people clapping and cheering for anyone going for the ride! We have ton of funs here.

Too bad we ended the night with the chaotic scene where Disney monorail service was down during the closing hour. Good bye Magic Kingdom.

Epcot
Epcot is a pretty big place, which is more than twice the size of Magic Kingdom. The park was originally planned to be developed as an experimental planned community which includs city center, school, residential and industrial and etc. Epcot acronym is Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. However that plan didn't materialize and has since evolved into a park which showcase the cutting edge of technology and international customs and cultures.

In our previous visit to Epcot, the kids were still very young and couldn't really enjoyed most of the rides and also got tired quickly walking in this big park. Fast forward to this year. We were able to enjoy most of the rides.

Gege really liked the Test Track at the World Discovery area in his previous visit. We were sure didi would love it too. This was our first attraction before the line start forming. At the beginning, the kid designed their own car. Then it went into 'test driving' its performance which is a ride going in high speed. We loved it!

Next was the Mission Space attraction ride next to it. We totally missed this last time. There are two type of rides in this attraction. Green mission for less intensive experience and Orange mission for intense journey. We highly recommend trying the Green Mission first especially if you have younger kids. This one was pretty fun. We later tried the Orange mission without mommy since it has some rolling back/forward motion. It was indeed much intense experience (daddy actually feel some pressure) and overall we like the green mission more.

We then went to the World Nature area which is a big building with multiple showcase and rides such as Seas with Nemo, Seabase, living with the land, turtle talk with crush (funny!) and Soarin' around the world! We thought the last ride was pretty amazing. It is like you are on a plane flying around the world.

Someone was craving for japanese food so went to Katsura Grill in the Japan area. Enjoying the performance while waiting in line.

With full stomach, everyone was happy and went to the brand new attraction, Remy's Ratatouille Adventure in the France area. The line was sooo long that dampen the excitement.

We went to O Canada! at the Canada area to watch a circle vision 360 film. Inspired us to visit Canada (again!)

Forgot to ask the kids if the phone is actually working and who did they called... Santa?

We went to he World Celebration area with several shows and films such as Disney and Pixar short films, also with a tour at journey into imagination with figment. Couldn't miss the candy machine..

And we can't say we went to Epcot without going to the iconic geodesic sphere which is 18 stories high, and enjoy the dark ride attraction. The line seemed long but went fairly quickly. There were also some games toward the end of the ride. Kids enjoyed it.

Night view when the beautiful sphere started changing color.

Since we had some times, we went to the Mexico area do ride the fiesta tour with 3 caballeros and the frozen ever after ride at the Norway area. Mommy really liked the frozen ride last time, but there is no more wow factor for her this time.

Reminded us of the indoor view of Venetian hotel and Caesar Palace in Las Vegas.

As you may have noticed, we mainly go for the rides and didn't spend too much times visited different countries area for the cultural immersions as we did last time. Mostly because we wouldn't have enough time as it is a huge park and our kids at this age prefer rides.

Hollywood Studios
This was our last park in Disney world. Our flight was later that night and we planned to go to airport directly from the park. We checked out our room in the morning and brought our backpacks and carry on bags (we packed very light) to the Disney Hollywood Studios park. We rented the self-serviced large locker for our bags. We pre-measured our bags so we knew it would fit in the locker. Keep in mind that there are different sizes of locker offered in different parks. More info could be found here.

We were 5-10 minutes before the park opened and we speed-walk, they don't let you run :), to the most popular attraction which is Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Unfortunately it wasn't opened and seemed due to some technical issue. Even that, the line was already getting quite long. We wasted no time and went straight to the attraction next to it, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. The line was much shorter.

From the timing that was shown in Genie app, it seems like the Rise of the Resistance attraction may be still down. We went ahead for other rides. There were a some fun rides in Toy Story Land: Slinky Dog Dash, Toy Story Mania and Alien Swirling Saucers.

Although the lines were long, we had fun at the slinky dog dash and toy story mania (kids still remembered this from last trip). Not sure if they had fun in the saucer..

We actually went back to do the toy story mania again later that night.

After lunch, we went to the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt spectacular at Echo Lake. Daddy really liked this. The kids didn't know India Jones but they really enjoyed the show. And we watched the movie when we came back home. Star Tours attraction was not opened so we went to see the Frozen Sing-Along celebration.

Went to watch a short animation at Vacation Fun show since we had some time in between while waiting for other attraction availability.

We proceeded to Sunset Boulevard for Lightning McQueen Racing Academy. Skipped the twilight zone tower of terror (either the line was too long or we thought wasn't for the kids yet), and watched more show at Beauty and the Beast live on stage.

When we got out from the show, to our surprise, the Rise of the Resistance attraction had pretty short wait time shown on Genie app, 30 minutes or so. We went directly there before the crowd came. To be honest, this is THE main attraction of this park. The elaboration of the design, structure and immersion experience of this Star Wars attraction is to the roof. Unless you are comparing to Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser that just opened in 2022..

There is another popular attraction that seems to always have long line. Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway at Hollywood Boulevard. This was our last ride and it was a long wait simply due to they were letting a lot more fast track people cut in. We think younger kids will like this ride.

That conclude our family second (last?) Disney World visit!