Day 8: On The Buses

It was a long, long day which consisted mostly of travelling.

First we waited for a shuttle to take us to Animal Kingdom, it was late. The journey was long and slow and when we finally got to Animal Kingdom, it was packed. On a Wednesday?! We wandered around trying to avoid all the strollers being aimed at us but were left less than impressed.

On every Disney brochure it tells you how to get around their parks and makes it sound so easy. Get a bus to any resort and then another bus to the park. But if you don’t know which resort is close to you or where you want to go you’re scuppered. We got on a bus to the Contemporary Resort and then another to Downtown Disney. This took us over an hour.

Downton Disney is having a makeover and so there are lots of boarding up blocking views. We went in some shops including the Lego one but were left disappointed again. Lunch at Planet Hollywood was just as bad. It was freezing inside and the vegetarian options were terrible. The decor also is really rather dated and it just looks dilapidated.

After the last bus fiasco we were apprehensive about another. The plan was to go to Hollywood Studios and then to Magic Kingdom but after another bus to another resort (a nearby one thankfully), we just jumped on the first bus that came – luckily it was going to Epcot where you can get a much quicker and easier monorail to Magic Kingdom.

Epcot was just as busy, the queue for Soarin’ was 75 minutes. So we turned around and headed back to Magic Kingdom. It was now getting quite late so we hoped the crowds would have thinned. They hadn’t.

We queued for 35 minutes for Peter Pan’s Flight. 35 minutes! Jumped straight into Mickey’s PhillarMagic and then queued again for the Thunder Mountain Railroad which was really fun in the dark.

Then it was the light show, quite impressive as the castle was lit up with lots of Disney themes and music. Then there was the fireworks, the reason we had gone in the first place. These were good but not as incredible as I remember them. Finally, we waited again for the trip back. We got back to the hotel just after midnight. Long day. Again.