Sunday, August 18, 2019

Trip Report - Halloween at Disney World (October 2018)



Hello All!

In honor of Disney World putting up their Halloween decorations for this year, I'm recapping our trip to Disney World last Halloween season! It was always a dream of mine to go to Disney for the Halloween season, to revel in the decorations on main street and to attend Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. Let me tell you, the party was so much fun, but such a blur! I checked it off my bucket list but added a second trip to the party right back on :)

I'm a bit behind on editing and uploading trip photos (there are loooots of photos from our Honeymoon still to come!) so I'm going to consolidate all of our photos from this trip into one post. It was a super fast trip, only 3 full days plus 2 travel days, so I'm going to recap what we did step by step throughout our 3 day trip.






We flew in to Orlando around 4 in the afternoon. The day we landed we opted to spend the evening in Disney Springs! We visited with the lego loch ness monster (a favorite of mine since childhood), had a tasty snack at the Daily Poutine stand (the Oktoberfest Poutine), and shopped around a bit. Not pictured was a SUPER fun dinner at Raglan Road (we were hungry, so I forgot to document! But this restaurant was a highlight for sure! We also loved the Irish entertainment!). After dinner we stopped at Indiana Jones thmed Jock Lindey's Hangar Bar. There were no seats inside so we sat outside on the water instead. This was a really calm spot, even on a busy day at Disney Springs. The perfect way to end the night!









The following day, we didn't have park tickets until our evening Not So Scary Halloween Party tickets. So to start the day, we headed over to winter summerland miniature golf course! We opened up the place so we had it practically to ourselves. While we were having a Halloween trip, it was fun to see so much Christmas and look forward to the season to come!



After we finished miniature golf, we popped over to the Polynesian resort, just to spook around. Here I had my first Dole Whip! It really is amazing! Next time I will for sure try the Dole Whip with rum!













After our quick dole whip snack at the Polynesian we hopped on the monorail and head to the Grand Floridian where we experienced the Garden View Tea Room! This tea was one of the highlights of the trip! The tea sandwiches were absolutely delicious and our waiter treat us to every desert on the menu, rather than having us pick! The tea itself was also sublime, and the tea pot was covered in a Grand Floridian branded tea cozy. So fun! After tea, we spent a few quiet moment on the dock at the Grand Floridian before taking the boat to the magic kingdom in time for the party!
















Our first night we spent at the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party! It was an incredible amount of fun. Our first stop was to grab our party merch. Afterwards we rode all our favorite rides, The Jungle Cruise and the Haunted Mansion. We had dinner at Colombia Harbor House (our favorite food spot at the Magic Kingdom) and rode splash mountain at sunset! We were able to nab an incredible spot for the special party fireworks, then squeeze our way to the front row for the Villain's stage show! It was incredible! Finally after dark, we hit a ton of trick or treat spots and nabbed ourselves a boatload of candy! We caught the Boo To You parade, and speed walked after to ride Pirates of the Caribbean just before the park closed. We just made it! Overall, it was an incredibly successful night at the Magic Kingdom. I want to do the Halloween party again!!

















We spend the second day of our Disney vacation at Epcot! They were having their food and wine festival at the time. We spend the day eating and drinking around the world, and enjoying some of our favorite Epcot rides, including the New Frozen ride! We cut out just before the nighttime show and head over to Trader Sam's Grog Grotto at the Polynesian resort. We were seated right away and enjoyed the show with our drinks! We finished up at Trader Sam's around 1 in the morning, and stumbled our way back to our hotel :)





















































Our last day at the parks was spent at Animal Kingdom! This is definitely my favorite park. We started the day on the Safari, and were lucky to see all of the animals out an about! We enjoyed the lion king stage show as well as all of the nature and animal walks around the parks. I scored a fastpass for the Avatar Flight of Passage ride, and absolutely loved it! We ate lunch in Pandora, and it was a delicious chicken bowl and interesting cheesecake that I could eat again and again. For an evening snack we sat and had bread service and cocktails at Nomad Lounge, the atmosphere and the nosh were amazing! We ate dinner at Tusker House buffet, that was definitely a highlight! I also loved the new Animal Kingdom night show, as well as the "awakenings" light show that took place on the tree of life. Overall, such a fun day!