Over the next few posts I’m going to talk about a recent trip I was fortunate to take with my brother. Admittedly I don’t have as many pictures to show you as I would like as I have a habit of getting involved in the experience and forgetting to take pictures. (My adult kids are usually snapping away and I end up using their photos)
My recent trip took place during the first week of December. To say the weather was marvelous would be an understatement! Beautiful blue skies, bright sunshine and temps averaging around 78 degrees. Mornings and evenings were cool, in the 50’s, but were very tolerable. I did a split stay between Pop Century Resort and the Animal Kingdom Lodge.
Pop Century is a value resort that sits next to the Art of Animation resort and they share a stop for the Disney Skyliner. I requested a Preferred Room which is close to the central building which houses check-in/out, the food court and the gift shop. The buses for the parks pick up in front of this building.
My room was very nice and well decorated with some Disney accents. The rooms were recently converted to have one queen bed and one pull-down Murphy queen bed. When you raise the Murphy bed the table unfolds from underneath it and you can place the chairs around it. The room does have a mini-fridge in it (as do all of Walt Disney Worlds resort rooms).
My other resort, Animal Kingdom Lodge, was very nice. I had a standard room which overlooked the front entrance of the resort and was very pleased that the traffic noise was hardly noticed. The rooms have two queen size beds, a table and chairs, a dresser, a mini fridge, and a closet.
There are plenty of spots between the main resort and Kidani Village (the Disney Vacation Club section) to view animals on the savannahs. The resort is very calming with plenty of seating in the lobby to just relax. You could spend an entire day just exploring the resort and its many offerings.
I took advantage of the Skyliner to access both Epcot and Hollywood Studios from Pop Century. Both rides were very pleasant without any issues. The cast members were loading only one group at a time so I had an entire car to myself!
Currently all Walt Disney World resort guests can enter the four theme parks 30 minutes before official park opening. The day I went to Hollywood Studios we were allowed in the park an hour early (This may have been a one and done situation so do not expect to be allowed in that early). This did however allow me to take some pictures of Galaxy’s Edge without any guests around.
Before meeting my brother and his wife for lunch, I had a chance to wander around the park taking some pictures.
The three busiest spots during the early opening were Toy Story Mania, Slinky Dog Dash, and Rise of the Resistance. Lines for the Toy Story Land rides did move relatively fast and had at least shrunk to only their outdoor que by around 9:30am. Rise of the Resistance was consistently long while I was there. We waited in line for Toy Story Mania about 50 minutes which is what the posted wait time was. The time passed quickly as we were chatting. I really enjoy this ride but my hand/eye coordination could definitely use some help. I did make the highest score I have ever had but I have a long way to go to keep up with my son! I’m player 2 by the way (player 1 was the computer so at least I beat that).
And so ends part one of my Disney Trip. The next post is going to go off on a side tangent, Genie+. I want to discuss that before we move on to the rest of the parks.