Farris Family's Day Off

Saturday, January 19

We departed Oakland International Airport in California and flew to Orlando on Southwest airlines. We had a layover in Tennessee so the total travel time was about 8 hours. Mia was 2 years old at the time and did great on such a long flight. We kept her entertained with some new toys, coloring books, and games and movies on her Amazon kids fire tablet. We also brought lots of snacks for her and us because the flight was so long and Southwest doesn’t offer any meals. Check out our guide on Youtube for how to entertain a toddler while flying.

We landed in Orlando around 9 PM and got our rental car from Alamo. We like renting from Alamo because they include the SunPass to pay for Florida toll roads for a minimal daily fee only on the days you use it. We have looked into other rental car places and found that some charge a larger daily fee on the days you use it and some even charge up to $20 per day every day even if you only used it once. This trip was a combination of a work trip for Kati and leisure trip for the rest of the family.

We started out by staying at Universal’s Cabana Bay Beach Resort because it was close to Kati’s work conference. We arrived at the resort around 11 PM. This was our first time staying at a Universal Resort Hotel and thought it was up to par with any of the Disney hotels. It was clean, comfortable, had a fun 60’s theme and had plenty of food and entertainment options. We ordered a pizza from room service on our first night and it took a while to arrive. We finally got it at midnight so we had our dinner and went to bed.

Sunday, January 20

Kati had to wake up early to go to her work conference while the rest of the family slept in.

We all met up and headed to Hollywood Studios in the afternoon. Elsa must have come to town because it was freezing cold (not literally but it was in the 40’s F and that is freezing for us Californians!). We have never been to Florida in the winter and were not expecting such cold weather but luckily we all brought jackets and stayed bundled up. We all agreed that we prefer to go to Florida in the hot and humid spring or summer months.

We enjoyed watching some of the shows at Hollywood Studios. Mia being a 2 year old girl loved the Frozen sing a long and Ariel’s undersea adventure. We did not have fast passes for either of these but got right in to both. This was our 2nd time visiting Toy Story Land and had a FastPass for Alien Swirling Saucers ride which we all enjoyed as a family.

We had dinner at Mama Melrose Ristorante Italiano which we had an advanced reservation for. This was our first time eating here and enjoyed the atmosphere of the Italian theming of the restaurant. We are a vegetarian family and had plenty of options here. We each had a bowl of vegetarian minestrone for $8/bowl to warm us up from the frigid Florida weather and it hit the spot. For our main dishes we got the polenta cake, mushroom and herb cauliflower for $19 and Mama’s Italian Pasta for $18. Both main dishes were average tasting. For dessert we got gelato for $6 and we all really enjoyed this. We got 10% off our dinner for being Disney Vacation Club (DVC) members/annual pass holders. Overall we really liked the restaurant especially because we could sit down in a nice indoor spot and have a nice, relaxing meal before heading back out.

After dinner we utilized the parent/child switch pass to ride Rock n’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. This allows one parent to stand in line while the other parent waits with the child that is not tall enough or too scared to ride. When the first parent gets off the ride they can watch the child while the second parent can skip the line and get on the ride pretty quickly.

We left the park before the nightly fireworks show started because Mia is terrified of fireworks but this also allowed us to beat the crowds to the parking lot. We headed back to Cabana Bay Beach Resort for the night. The drive between Disney World and Cabana Bay was about 20 minutes and there were no toll roads or traffic the entire time we were there.

Monday, January 21

Kati had to wake up early again for her work conference while the rest of the family slept in.

We headed over to Magic Kingdom park in the afternoon after Kati got out of her conference. It was another cold day so we were bundled up again. We rode the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover and Under the Sea- Journey of the Little Mermaid then headed over to Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe for dinner. We ordered the plant based sloppy joe’s for $12.99 each. There was no DVC or annual passholder discount here but we did utilize mobile ordering. Mobile ordering can be done through the Disney World app and is a great time saver. You just log in and pick what you want then click “I’m here” when you are near the restaurant then they will send you a message when your food is ready. This way we could find a table and get settled instead of waiting in the food order line while they made our food. We enjoyed this vegan option and were excited that Disney keeps adding more plant based food options to their menus. When we first started visiting Disney World in 2004 we ate a lot of dry black bean burgers because there were not many vegetarian options around.

We headed back to the monorail to get to our car in the parking lot after dinner. There was already a large crowd leaving and the fireworks hadn’t even started yet. We ended up getting stuck on the monorail for a while so it took almost 45 minutes to get back to our car. After we finally made it to our car we headed over to the Disney Character Warehouse which is a Disney outlet store and bought 3 Disney shirts for $29, these are usually at least $30 per shirt at the parks! Then we went back to Cabana Bay Beach Resort for the night.

Tuesday, January 22

Another early morning for Kati and sleeping in for the rest of the family!

After the conference we headed to EPCOT. We happened to come right during the International Festival of the Arts. We enjoyed checking out all the artist booths and even got to see some artists working on their pieces. We did not stop by any of the special food booths because there was not a great vegetarian selection at this festival.

We had dinner at Coral Reef Restaurant in EPCOT. We had an awesome time at this restaurant and our server, Art was amazing. The restaurant has spectacular views of a living coral reef and amazing sea creatures who call it home. This was great to keep our toddler occupied during dinner. We each ordered the vegan tempura-fried cauliflower with soy sausage crumbles for $24 per plate and thought it was wonderful. We received a 20% discount here because Disney was running a special promotion for passholders at the time but normally it would have been a 10% discount.

We had FastPasses for Spaceship Earth and Frozen Ever After. Mia was a little scared of both rides because they were dark and too loud for her sensitive ears. We did bring her noise cancelling headphones which helped a lot. We also did a meet and greet with Pluto which was awesome, Mia was just now starting to get over her fear of characters and even gave Pluto a high five.

Wednesday, January 23

This was Kati’s last day of the conference so she headed out early again. In the afternoon we went to our favorite park, Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

We are a family of animal lovers and especially love Kilimanjaro Safari which we had a FastPass for. We love this ride because it goes through amazing habitats where animals roam free and each ride is completely different depending on what the animals are up to that day. The weather was finally starting to get warmer and we did not need heavy jackets today.

We also went to Pandora and had FastPasses for Flight of Passage. This was our 2nd time experiencing Pandora and the banshee ride and thought it was just as amazing as the first time we were there last July.

We had dinner at one of our new favorite restaurants Sau’li Canteen in Pandora. Here they have a nice chili-spiced fried tofu bowl with a variety of options such as different bases and sauces. These cost $12.49 each and do not offer any discounts for DVC or annual pass holders. We ended up asking to look at the allergy menu to make sure the bases and sauces we ordered did not include any sort of fish or animal broths.

We headed over to Dinoland USA at the end of the night and rode Triceratop Spin and then Mia joined in on Donald’s Dino Bash dance party were she danced the night away alongside Chip and Dale. We ended up staying here until the park closed.

One thing we love about Animal Kingdom is that they do not have a fireworks show so people that have sensory issues don’t have to leave early or find a spot to hide during the show. We drove back to Cabana Bay for our last night before going full Disney mode since Kati’s work conference had ended that day.

Thursday, January 24

This morning we checked out of Cabana Bay Beach Resort and made a stop at the other Disney Character Warehouse on International Drive and purchased some more discounted Disney souvenirs.

We drove to Walt Disney World and checked in to Disney’s Port Orleans French Quarter. This was our first time staying at a non Disney Vacation Club Resort because we ran out of our DVC points for the year. We were pleasantly surprised with the quality and theming of the French Quarter resort. We found the grounds to be beautiful and we enjoyed all the fountains and the river right behind the resort.

We had lunch at Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory at French Quarter and we were thrilled that they offered Beyond burgers for $11.99 each. The plant-based burger was delicious and we also got 3 Mickey beignets for $4.49 which were a lot larger than we thought so we could not finish them all. We found out that they offer a vegan beignet by request as well.

After lunch we headed to Magic Kingdom using the bus transportation which we liked a lot better than when we drove there the other day because the bus drops you off right at the front. We did the Mickey and Minnie birthday celebration meet and greet which we waited for about 30 minutes to do. After meeting Mickey and Minnie we watched the Fantasy of Festival parade on main street. The parade was a lot of fun and Mia was very excited as each float came by and waved hello to her favorite characters.

We went on Jungle Cruise and we always love to compare rides like this one to their counterparts in Disneyland. The Disney World one has an extra tunnel sequence that Disneyland does not have which was really neat to see. After the Jungle Cruise we headed over to Jungle Navigation Co. LTD Skipper Canteen restaurant. This restaurant is themed after the Jungle Cruise ride and even has skipper’s as the waiters. The skipper waiters tell corny jokes the entire time which was a lot of fun and the atmosphere inside the restaurant was really nice. We got the Falls Family Falafel appetizer for $10 and for our main dishes we got one curried vegetable crew stew for $18 and Shriki noodle salad for $11.00. We also got a Schweitzer slush which was refreshing and delicious for $6.50. We got a 20% discount because of the special annual pass discount going on at that time of year. We really enjoyed that the vegetarian options here were unique and adventurous.

After dinner we headed back to French Quarter for the night. We hadn’t checked out our room yet because it was not ready when we got there earlier in the day. We were sent a text when our room was ready so we could go straight to our room and open the door with our magic bands or phones. We had reserved a garden view room and ended up in building 1 in a bottom, corner unit. We liked the location because it was close to the parking lot so we could easily unpack from our car but we also had a nice view of the gardens. The room was spacious, comfortable and clean. For a full room tour check out our you tube video.

Friday, January 25

Today we did a full day at Animal Kingdom Park. We had fast passes for Kilimanjaro Safari, Fight of Passage and Dinosaur. Mia was able to ride Kilimanjaro Safari which she absolutely loved and we used the parent switch pass for Flight of Passage and Dinosaur. Since we only had two adults and have to ride the bigger rides one at a time anyways we were able to utilize the single riders line on Expedition Everest instead of using a fast pass. There are several rides at Disney World that have a single riders line but Expedition Everest is the only one at Animal Kingdom.

Animal Kingdom has a large portion of animal exhibits which you can walk through similar to a zoo. We walked through the Asian animal section but since it was another cold day in Florida most of the animals were hiding in there heated indoor homes and we didn’t see many of them. Mia loved playing at the Boneyard, which is a dinosaur themed playground and dinosaur dig area for kids. We also watched Finding Nemo the Musical and Festival of the Lion King shows. Both shows were fantastic and Mia was delighted to see her favorite characters dance and sing on stage. In the evening we watched the Tree of Life Nighttime Awakenings projection show which we all thought was stunning. After the show we wrapped up the night by riding Triceratops spin and dancing with Chip and Dale and Donald’s Dino Bash. Once again we love this park because there is no fireworks show to scare sensitive kids and we are able to stay until closing without any issues.

We headed back to Port Orleans French Quarter for our last night at Disney World. We enjoyed a pretty laid back week at Disney World with mostly half days at the parks. Thanks to being annual passholders we did not feel like we were wasting our money by not going to the parks all day. We also had just been 6 months prior to this trip and had another trip planned in 4 months.

The next day we were heading to the Disney Fantasy for a 7 night Caribbean cruise.