By now you know that we are Disney obsessed! But believe it or not, this was our first time back since the 50th Anniversary Celebration, which began on October 1st, 2021.That’s because as much as we love Disney we really dislike heavy crowds, so we decided to wait out the excitement a little bit and just enjoy it in January when Mark runs his first Disney Marathon. Well, then life kept kicking us around, sadness leaked in and a bit of a rut took over so as any great husband does – he got on the My Disney Experience App and started making reservations!
As another surprise we also stayed at Art of Animation Resort for the first time which will definitely get its own future post! For this quick December escape, we made park reservations for Epcot and Hollywood Studios – both of which you can take the Disney Skyliner to from Art of Animation and Pop Century. We love Pop Century and that will also be for another post!
We drove after work on a Thursday and checked in to the resort then headed to another first for us – Epcot Festival of the Holidays. We will be the first to admit, it’s not our personal favorite Epcot Festival, maybe it’s because we just haven’t been in the holiday spirit, or maybe because it’s too many sweets and cinnamon for us as people LOL but it did warm our hearts just a bit. We of course had a blast eating and drinking around the World Showcase (favorites were Tuscany Holiday Kitchen and Le Marche De Noel Holiday Kitchen), attending the Candlelight Processional, checking out the new Ratatouville area, watching the amazing new light shows on Spaceship Earth, and my favorite of the night – Epcot’s new night show – Harmonious. Full disclosure – we only watched the first few minutes from the bridge area in France then we booked it to the Skyliner before the crowds all headed there too and OH MY GOSH it was absolutely epic to watch the finale of Harmonious from the air! The Skyliner whizzes right by Epcot and it was awesome!
We also of course spent time locating and photographing the 50th Anniversary golden character statues at both parks. We have to go back to Epcot for Figment because we missed him – oh darn! But otherwise we got the rest at Epcot and Hollywood Studios the following day!
Mark’s favorite park is Hollywood Studios – hello Galaxy’s Edge – so we spent Friday wandering around sipping Hollywood’s finest cocktails, being heckled by Storm Troopers, and of course talking with Chewbacca! Chewy loved Mark’s shirt of course and there’s nothing cuter than a 40-year-old kid meeting one of his idols LOL!!! Smiles all around. My favorite thing of the day though was checking out Walt Disney Presents – 100 Years of Disney on Display Gallery followed by Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream, a 15-minute documentary that showcases the life of Walt Disney narrated by the man himself! It was truly magical and inspiring and something we really cherished seeing.
It was a short and sweet visit, but it was the jolt of love and laughter we needed. Come on January, we can’t wait to go back! Wish Mark the best of luck on his first ever full Marathon!