Morrighan
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2019
674 days. It might not seem like much to some, but for my boyfriend(28) and I(34) it’s been a long journey. Back in April 2018 we made the decision to enter a long distance relationship. He lives in Finland, and me, I live in Norway. We’re separated by over 1000 kilometres, and travel time usually totals to at least half a day with two train rides and a flight. However, if everything goes according to plan we will be moving in together before reaching 800 days.
Now anyone that’s been in a long distance relationship knows that planning future vacations together can really help make the time pass. Having something exciting to look forward to tends to help lessen the pain of not being together everyday. So we decided to plan for a vacation outside of Europe to mark the end of our long distance relationship and the beginning of a new chapter in our life.
My favourite vacation destination so far has to be Japan, and my “Disney home” will forever be Tokyo Disney Resort. It was my first park, and I loved every second that I spent there. However, my boyfriend hasn’t travelled quite as much as me so he wasn’t feeling all that comfortable having our celebration vacation together be to a country with a language barrier. While we were considering our options the free dining offer for Walt Disney World during the summer/fall 2020 dropped in the UK. Now I figured I would just check it out to satisfy my own curiosity, but it proved to be too good of an offer to turn down. In less than a few hours we went from well that might be fun to having booked a 8 night stay at Coronado Springs Resort. Suddenly we had an Orlando trip to plan.
Luckily I love planning vacations, in another life I might just have ended up working as a travel agent, and within two days we were basically set. I was the one scouring the internet for recommendations and tips before presenting the best couple of options to my boyfriend, so that he could be a part of everything without getting overwhelmed by all the options. We quickly decided to upgrade our free Quick Service dining plan to the Dining plan since it better suits our wishes for our vacation. Now of course there’s been some adjustment and changes to our plan since then, but these have been minor overall. So here it is, our plan for visiting Orlando this fall:
First travel day: Leaving from our home/homes and travel to London.
Now when making this plan we knew about the possibility that things could change a lot before our departure date. We might have to delay moving in together due to work, we might end up living in a different city than originally planned etc. So we decided that the safest, and also most comfortable option, was to book a direct flight from London to Orlando. That way we could secure our tickets as early as possible to get a good price without having to worry. No matter where we might end up, or whatever the situation might be, getting a reasonably priced flight to London isn’t difficult for either of us, even on short notice. So our first travel day will be to get a flight to London, stay at an airport hotel and get a proper night sleep knowing that we won’t have to deal with connecting flights on our main travel day.
Second travel day: Flight from London to Orlando, and checking in at Coronado Springs Resort
There are two things I wish I could change in hindsight. One is our flight and the second is our choice of resort.
I would have preferred to have a morning flight with Virgin Atlantic, but we got a better price with a later flight with British Airways. So in order to make the best of our situation we ended up upgrading to Premium Economy, and booking a lounge at the airport. This still proved to be cheaper than the Virgin Atlantic flight that we wanted.
Now for our resort choice I wish I had taken a chance on Caribbean Beach Resort since this offer occurred before the Skyliner so the price difference wasn’t that big. However, by the time we regretted our choice it was too late. We have decided that we’re going to make the best of it regardless.
So the hope is to arrive at our resort at around 8pm, and fight the jet lag by visiting Disney Springs for a short trip to grab some food and visit a few shops. We plan to have some groceries delivered to our resort so if we’re delayed, or simply too tired, we can just walk around the resort and eat in our room.
Third travel day: Disney’s Hollywood Studios
The absolute highlight for my boyfriend during this trip is visiting Hollywood Studios. So I figured nothing would be a better start to our vacation, and more motivating for him to get up for, than visiting Galaxy’s Edge.To avoid over planning and feeling pressured to see and do everything we have decided to each choose two attractions and one entertainment options that are on our must do list. Anything else is something we consider a bonus to our trip.
Hollywood Studios Must Do list:
As far as food we plan to use our Quick Service credits in Galaxy’s Edge and take the Skyliner over to have dinner at Sebastian’s Bistro with our Table Service credit.
Fourth travel day: Epcot
Eating around the world at the Food and Wine festival is one of my highlights this trip, and it’s also where we intend to use most of our snack credits. So we figured it would be wise to plan for this early in our trip to see how many snack credits we would have “free” for our other days.
However, we know that we will want to get a proper sit down break as well so we’re spending our daily Table Service credit for dinner at Garden Grill. We originally wanted to get breakfast, but the main meal at dinner holds more appeal to us. Also we’re less in need of a sit down and shade in the morning. Luckily dinner at Garden Grill is a rather easy reservation to get, so our backup plan is to modify our reservation to our ninth day if we’re just too full for a sit down meal.
Epcot Must Do list:
Touringplans has listed that this day is likely to have extra magic hours at Magic Kingdom so we plan to leave Epcot early enough to catch Happily Ever After and do a few rides. We plan to catch HarmonioUS on our ninth day.
Fifth day: Magic Kingdom
While the dates haven’t been officially announced yet Touringplans are predicting that there will be a Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween party on this day so it’s a bit shorter park day. We have done the Halloween celebrations in Disneyland Paris and loved that experience, but this party doesn’t hold much appeal to us. The after hours event that we would ideally like to attend would have been Villains After Hours, and that’s sadly not an option in September.
Magic Kingdom Must Do list:
For food we plan a Quick Service Meal at Columbia Harbour House, and a dinner at Artist Point Storybook Dining. So all of our dining credits for this day will be used.
Sixth day: Animal Kingdom
This is our only planned day at Animal Kingdom so it’s also the only day that we don’t plan to take a midday break at our resort. We’ll see if that won’t change once we’re there. This also proved a problem when trying to decide on a Quick Service location since there’s not a lack of places we would like to try in Animal Kingdom. However, we plan to get most of our rides done in the morning, when it’s less warm, and then just enjoy the rest of our day at a leisurely pace with exploring all the animal trails.
Animal Kingdom Must Do list:
For dining we’re thinking Satu’li Canteen, maybe spending a snack credit on the French Fries with Pulled Pork at Flame Tree Barbecue, and then dinner at Tusker House.
Seventh day: Resting and shopping day
This is the first of two days with lazy mornings for my boyfriend and morning yoga at the Resort for me. A mini vacation midway in our vacation.
The plan is to take a trip to the Florida Mall and the Outlets before having lunch at Morimoto Asia. After lunch we head back to our resort to relax. Then in the evening we plan on having dinner at Quick Service in Disney Springs and possibly do some more shopping. Maybe we’ll visit The Eddison for cocktails if we feel like it.
Eight day: Resting, waterparks, mini golf and hopefully brunch.
We’re crossing our fingers to snag that difficult to get reservation for brunch at California Grill for this day. It’s the meal that’s on the top of our wish list for this trip.
The rest of the day we’re leaving open to visit Typhoon Lagoon, Fantasia Gardens and Fairways Miniature Golf, and just relax. We’re probably going to have another late Quick Service dinner at Disney Springs.
Ninth day: Hollywood Studios and Epcot
This is our split day between Hollywood Studio and Epcot, starting our day in Hollywood Studios since there are more rides we would like to do here than in Epcot. Our plan for the day really depends on our previous days in the two parks. The only thing that we have really planned for now is to watch HarmonioUs.
For our meals of the day we plan on using the Skyliner to visit Disney’s Riviera Resort and eat at Primo Piatto. Also depending on if we moved our Garden Grill dinner reservation to this day or not we have either that, or an extra Quick Service meal to use freely.
Tenth day: Magic Kingdom
As a special last day treat we plan to pay out of pocket for a lovely breakfast at the Wave before walking over to Magic Kingdom. Our plans would once again depend on what we got done on previous visits, but mostly we plan on revisiting our favourite things.
We’ll head over to Animal Kingdom Lodge for lunch, or dinner depending on how late it gets, at Boma. My boyfriend especially is really looking forward to this meal.
Then it’s back to the resort, pick up our luggage and transfer to our next hotel near Universal Studios.
Eleventh day: Universal Studios Florida
We have yet to decide on what sort of tickets we would like for Universal Studio, and if we’re going to attend Halloween Horror Nights so these days are the most unplanned of our vacation so far. However for the sake of planning I will split up our Universal stay with one park each day, though we’re most likely going to get a park hopper.
If we are attending Halloween Horror Nights my number one wish is to do the Scareactor dining experience based on videos I have seen from previous years.
Universal Studios Florida Must Do list:
We would probably end up eating at the Classic Monsters Cafe and having ice cream at Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlour.
Twelfth day: Universal's Islands of Adventure
Universal’s Islands of Adventure Must Do list:
Thirteenth day: Departure day
Since we haven’t bought our Universal Studio tickets yet we still don’t know if we’ll only get a two day ticket or end up with a UK ticket that would last for 14 days. So this could end up as a Universal Studio day, a shopping day, or explore something new in Orlando.
Our flight leaves late at night so we will be waking up in London the next day.
Fourteenth day: Arriving in London and heading home
After having landed in London before noon we’ll probably aim to get a flight home as soon as possible. Hopefully after agreeing on that it has been a very successful vacation.
Now anyone that’s been in a long distance relationship knows that planning future vacations together can really help make the time pass. Having something exciting to look forward to tends to help lessen the pain of not being together everyday. So we decided to plan for a vacation outside of Europe to mark the end of our long distance relationship and the beginning of a new chapter in our life.
My favourite vacation destination so far has to be Japan, and my “Disney home” will forever be Tokyo Disney Resort. It was my first park, and I loved every second that I spent there. However, my boyfriend hasn’t travelled quite as much as me so he wasn’t feeling all that comfortable having our celebration vacation together be to a country with a language barrier. While we were considering our options the free dining offer for Walt Disney World during the summer/fall 2020 dropped in the UK. Now I figured I would just check it out to satisfy my own curiosity, but it proved to be too good of an offer to turn down. In less than a few hours we went from well that might be fun to having booked a 8 night stay at Coronado Springs Resort. Suddenly we had an Orlando trip to plan.
Luckily I love planning vacations, in another life I might just have ended up working as a travel agent, and within two days we were basically set. I was the one scouring the internet for recommendations and tips before presenting the best couple of options to my boyfriend, so that he could be a part of everything without getting overwhelmed by all the options. We quickly decided to upgrade our free Quick Service dining plan to the Dining plan since it better suits our wishes for our vacation. Now of course there’s been some adjustment and changes to our plan since then, but these have been minor overall. So here it is, our plan for visiting Orlando this fall:
First travel day: Leaving from our home/homes and travel to London.
Now when making this plan we knew about the possibility that things could change a lot before our departure date. We might have to delay moving in together due to work, we might end up living in a different city than originally planned etc. So we decided that the safest, and also most comfortable option, was to book a direct flight from London to Orlando. That way we could secure our tickets as early as possible to get a good price without having to worry. No matter where we might end up, or whatever the situation might be, getting a reasonably priced flight to London isn’t difficult for either of us, even on short notice. So our first travel day will be to get a flight to London, stay at an airport hotel and get a proper night sleep knowing that we won’t have to deal with connecting flights on our main travel day.
Second travel day: Flight from London to Orlando, and checking in at Coronado Springs Resort
There are two things I wish I could change in hindsight. One is our flight and the second is our choice of resort.
I would have preferred to have a morning flight with Virgin Atlantic, but we got a better price with a later flight with British Airways. So in order to make the best of our situation we ended up upgrading to Premium Economy, and booking a lounge at the airport. This still proved to be cheaper than the Virgin Atlantic flight that we wanted.
Now for our resort choice I wish I had taken a chance on Caribbean Beach Resort since this offer occurred before the Skyliner so the price difference wasn’t that big. However, by the time we regretted our choice it was too late. We have decided that we’re going to make the best of it regardless.
So the hope is to arrive at our resort at around 8pm, and fight the jet lag by visiting Disney Springs for a short trip to grab some food and visit a few shops. We plan to have some groceries delivered to our resort so if we’re delayed, or simply too tired, we can just walk around the resort and eat in our room.
Third travel day: Disney’s Hollywood Studios
The absolute highlight for my boyfriend during this trip is visiting Hollywood Studios. So I figured nothing would be a better start to our vacation, and more motivating for him to get up for, than visiting Galaxy’s Edge.To avoid over planning and feeling pressured to see and do everything we have decided to each choose two attractions and one entertainment options that are on our must do list. Anything else is something we consider a bonus to our trip.
Hollywood Studios Must Do list:
- Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
- Slinky Dog Dash
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
- Meet Chewbacca
- Firework show (unless they open up a Mandalorian meet and greet before we get there)
As far as food we plan to use our Quick Service credits in Galaxy’s Edge and take the Skyliner over to have dinner at Sebastian’s Bistro with our Table Service credit.
Fourth travel day: Epcot
Eating around the world at the Food and Wine festival is one of my highlights this trip, and it’s also where we intend to use most of our snack credits. So we figured it would be wise to plan for this early in our trip to see how many snack credits we would have “free” for our other days.
However, we know that we will want to get a proper sit down break as well so we’re spending our daily Table Service credit for dinner at Garden Grill. We originally wanted to get breakfast, but the main meal at dinner holds more appeal to us. Also we’re less in need of a sit down and shade in the morning. Luckily dinner at Garden Grill is a rather easy reservation to get, so our backup plan is to modify our reservation to our ninth day if we’re just too full for a sit down meal.
Epcot Must Do list:
- Test Track
- Frozen Ever After (followed by me ranting about the historical inaccuracy of the horned helmets they sell in the Norwegian gift shop, much to my boyfriend’s amusement)
- Mission: Space
- See the Manatees (my boyfriend’s second favourite animal after the capybara)
- HarmonioUS
- Meet Mulan in China
Touringplans has listed that this day is likely to have extra magic hours at Magic Kingdom so we plan to leave Epcot early enough to catch Happily Ever After and do a few rides. We plan to catch HarmonioUS on our ninth day.
Fifth day: Magic Kingdom
While the dates haven’t been officially announced yet Touringplans are predicting that there will be a Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween party on this day so it’s a bit shorter park day. We have done the Halloween celebrations in Disneyland Paris and loved that experience, but this party doesn’t hold much appeal to us. The after hours event that we would ideally like to attend would have been Villains After Hours, and that’s sadly not an option in September.
Magic Kingdom Must Do list:
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- Splash Mountain
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- Jungle Cruise
- Happily Ever After (that we obviously won’t be able to watch that day if there’s a party scheduled)
- Meet Gaston near his tavern.
For food we plan a Quick Service Meal at Columbia Harbour House, and a dinner at Artist Point Storybook Dining. So all of our dining credits for this day will be used.
Sixth day: Animal Kingdom
This is our only planned day at Animal Kingdom so it’s also the only day that we don’t plan to take a midday break at our resort. We’ll see if that won’t change once we’re there. This also proved a problem when trying to decide on a Quick Service location since there’s not a lack of places we would like to try in Animal Kingdom. However, we plan to get most of our rides done in the morning, when it’s less warm, and then just enjoy the rest of our day at a leisurely pace with exploring all the animal trails.
Animal Kingdom Must Do list:
- Avatar Flight of Passage
- Expedition Everest
- Kali River Rapids
- Kilimanjaro Safaris
- Meet Russell and Dug
- Rivers of Light
For dining we’re thinking Satu’li Canteen, maybe spending a snack credit on the French Fries with Pulled Pork at Flame Tree Barbecue, and then dinner at Tusker House.
Seventh day: Resting and shopping day
This is the first of two days with lazy mornings for my boyfriend and morning yoga at the Resort for me. A mini vacation midway in our vacation.
The plan is to take a trip to the Florida Mall and the Outlets before having lunch at Morimoto Asia. After lunch we head back to our resort to relax. Then in the evening we plan on having dinner at Quick Service in Disney Springs and possibly do some more shopping. Maybe we’ll visit The Eddison for cocktails if we feel like it.
Eight day: Resting, waterparks, mini golf and hopefully brunch.
We’re crossing our fingers to snag that difficult to get reservation for brunch at California Grill for this day. It’s the meal that’s on the top of our wish list for this trip.
The rest of the day we’re leaving open to visit Typhoon Lagoon, Fantasia Gardens and Fairways Miniature Golf, and just relax. We’re probably going to have another late Quick Service dinner at Disney Springs.
Ninth day: Hollywood Studios and Epcot
This is our split day between Hollywood Studio and Epcot, starting our day in Hollywood Studios since there are more rides we would like to do here than in Epcot. Our plan for the day really depends on our previous days in the two parks. The only thing that we have really planned for now is to watch HarmonioUs.
For our meals of the day we plan on using the Skyliner to visit Disney’s Riviera Resort and eat at Primo Piatto. Also depending on if we moved our Garden Grill dinner reservation to this day or not we have either that, or an extra Quick Service meal to use freely.
Tenth day: Magic Kingdom
As a special last day treat we plan to pay out of pocket for a lovely breakfast at the Wave before walking over to Magic Kingdom. Our plans would once again depend on what we got done on previous visits, but mostly we plan on revisiting our favourite things.
We’ll head over to Animal Kingdom Lodge for lunch, or dinner depending on how late it gets, at Boma. My boyfriend especially is really looking forward to this meal.
Then it’s back to the resort, pick up our luggage and transfer to our next hotel near Universal Studios.
Eleventh day: Universal Studios Florida
We have yet to decide on what sort of tickets we would like for Universal Studio, and if we’re going to attend Halloween Horror Nights so these days are the most unplanned of our vacation so far. However for the sake of planning I will split up our Universal stay with one park each day, though we’re most likely going to get a park hopper.
If we are attending Halloween Horror Nights my number one wish is to do the Scareactor dining experience based on videos I have seen from previous years.
Universal Studios Florida Must Do list:
- Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts
- Hogwarts Express
- Explore Diagon Alley
- Make my boyfriend suffer through Minion Mayhem
We would probably end up eating at the Classic Monsters Cafe and having ice cream at Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlour.
Twelfth day: Universal's Islands of Adventure
Universal’s Islands of Adventure Must Do list:
- Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls (as payback for Minion Mayhem)
- Popeye & Bluto’s Bilge-Rats Barges
- Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
- Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure
Thirteenth day: Departure day
Since we haven’t bought our Universal Studio tickets yet we still don’t know if we’ll only get a two day ticket or end up with a UK ticket that would last for 14 days. So this could end up as a Universal Studio day, a shopping day, or explore something new in Orlando.
Our flight leaves late at night so we will be waking up in London the next day.
Fourteenth day: Arriving in London and heading home
After having landed in London before noon we’ll probably aim to get a flight home as soon as possible. Hopefully after agreeing on that it has been a very successful vacation.
