Pre-Trip Report: Anna’s Scotland to WDW Holiday (April 2026)

[00:00:11] Welcome to Where I Long To Be, a Magical Trip Report Podcast. My name is Virginia and I am your host. Thank you all so much for tuning in for another fun episode. I have a lot to do today, so I'm not going to waste any time jumping right in. Please welcome to the podcast for the very first time, Anna. Welcome, Anna. Or is it Anna, should I say? Right the first time, Anna. Okay. That's how you would say it. Hi, Virginia. Very nice to meet you. Yeah, really nice to meet you too. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:41] Where are you coming to me from in this world? Yeah, you can probably tell by my accent I'm not local to you. I'm coming from Scotland. We live just north of Edinburgh. So about half an hour's drive north of Edinburgh. Amazing. Have it in my mind to get to Scotland at some point in my life. I've always wanted to go. I had a very good friend in college who was a study abroad student who was with us at my college for a year and he was from Scotland.

[00:01:10] And he was just amazing. And so I always said, I'll come visit and I still haven't. And it's been a lot of years since college. Yeah, we had quite a few Americans at my university who were in their study abroad. In fact, one of my friends married one of them. Oh, really? Wow. One of my flatmates. Yeah. So he spent a lot of time in our house, this particular guy, because he got together with my flatmate and he ended up getting married and moving to America together. So I think it's quite common to work both ways.

[00:01:39] Wow. That's really cool. Okay. So how did you decide to travel to Disney? I guess, have you been before? What's your history with Disney? So this particular trip is for my husband and I for our 20th wedding anniversary, but it's a family trip. Congratulations. Thank you. So our anniversary was in February, but we don't get much time off school. We get three days off school in February. So we decided to make it in April.

[00:02:07] It is me and the girls. It's our fourth. I've got two girls and it's our fourth trip to Disney World. My husband's third trip because I took them on my own last time a couple of years ago. So yeah, we've been a few times. All right. What is your husband's name? Nick. Nick. And how old are the girls? Girls are 14 and 11. Okay. And what are their names? So Imogen's 14 and Zoe is 11. I love those names. Those are beautiful. Thank you. So how old were they when you took them by yourself?

[00:02:36] Oh, no. Two years ago. They'd have been 12 and 9. Okay. How was that traveling across the world by yourself? Fine. Fine. I've traveled to America on my own before. So I had two friends with me and they were old enough to, you know, they were actually very close to being 13 and 10. They were only a couple of months off their birthdays. It was absolutely fine. Yeah.

[00:03:00] I mean, by that point, we'd been to Florida a few times. So it didn't seem too difficult. It was an on-site holiday, completely on-site at Disney because I thought that just kept it nice and simple. But my husband wasn't available for that trip. So we actually got out his way. He was finishing a degree. We got out his way.

[00:03:46] Oh, wow. But that's the only other park I've done. I've not done any of the other parks yet. Yeah. When we have our 20th wedding anniversary, which is coming up in about a year and a half, we have talked about going to Japan and making it a combination 20th wedding anniversary slash Alex graduating from high school trip and doing, you know, Japan itself.

[00:04:12] But then also, of course, making our way over to Tokyo Disney. That would be amazing. Quite a long journey for you from, I mean, I suppose it would be for us as well, but Japan from, yeah, quite a while. For sure. Which is why it occurred to me that perhaps we should try to plan it so that we stop in Ohlani along the way. Yes. I was like, wouldn't that be amazing? Yeah. Or, I mean, even, I guess, even Disneyland, you could, if you couldn't swing Hawaii.

[00:04:40] I mean, fortunately, we're DVC members. So I'm like, maybe we could at least get a night or two there, you know, just sort of on our journey. We'll see. We'll see. We've got a little bit of time to plan for that. All right. What kind of tickets do you have for this trip? So I'm aware you've had a couple of UK people on just last year, even, and it will be the same tickets as them because we all get the same tickets. We get the two week, 14 days for the price of seven. Yet it always seems to be the price of seven.

[00:05:08] It never seems to be a different price. Yeah, we get 14 days. So although we're only going for 10 days, it still makes sense to have this 14 day ticket because it's cheaper than, I think it's cheaper than like a five day park hopper in the US. So there's no reason why we wouldn't just get that. And so it's a park hopper. It includes the water parks. It includes memory maker, mini golf. All, you know, it's just includes everything. So that's the kind of tickets people from the UK pretty much always get.

[00:05:38] And I've spoken with some people who have the version of it that also includes Universal, which the first time somebody told me about that, I was like, what? That's wrong. That doesn't exist. And then I didn't. Yeah, well, it depends who you're buying it. Yes, it depends who you're buying it from. So the 14 day ticket is just a 14 day ticket. And then Universal, you can get a 14 day ticket too. And there are some sellers that sort of bundle them together at a lower price. But you can just get one or the other.

[00:06:07] We've actually been over before and just had the Universal ticket for 14 days. So they sort of bundle together slightly cheaper than buying the two separately. But I think if you're just doing the Disney bit, it's like whoever you buy it through, whether it's Disney or another party, they're sort of getting it from Disney. It's the same price pretty much. I mean, with a slight variation, it's the same kind of price. Are you going to be doing any add-ons for this trip?

[00:06:35] And what I mean by that is because you have such a long trip, are you going to be doing any like dessert parties, lightning lanes, anything? So what's really funny is you see a long trip. This is the shortest trip we've ever done to Disney. So in my mind, we're not going to do anything extra because we've hardly got any time compared to other trips to Disney. We've never gone for just 10 nights. So it's such a short trip that we're just going to want to do the basics.

[00:07:01] I think it's just how, I mean, yes, it's how people in the UK. Yeah. I mean, I at my job, I get probably, I think I get like 20, 20 true vacation days, plus a couple of personal days, plus holidays. So I get lots of days off, but it is very unusual for people to take more than a week or more than like a week and a few days off at one time. Like if you take more than that, it's kind of like a one-off.

[00:07:30] It's very unusual for people in the UK to take less than two weeks for their main holiday each year. And lots of people take three weeks. So it is just a wee bit different. And I do have a lot more annual leave than that as well. Yeah. I mean, we are thinking, gosh, how are we going to fit this all into 10 days? So we're not doing, because of that, we're not doing anything that I would consider extra. We have done sort of extra things before. We stayed on site last year after a Disney cruise and we did horse riding, for example. Oh, okay.

[00:08:00] Which I've never done before at Fort Wilderness. So we have done things in the past, but this time I think it will just really be focused on trying to do the parks. I don't know when we'll be back again. I know it is only two years since we were there, but there could easily be longer gaps. So it could be years before we're there again. So because of that, we probably will just focus on the park. So no dessert parties, nothing else that I can think is a real. And part of why we're not doing any extra,

[00:08:28] too many extra things like that is our deal from the UK included the free quick service dining plan. So because we've paid for our food kind of already by getting that deal, we didn't want to do too many extra things that were going to involve food. All right. So are you going to be doing lightning lines though? You're not going to do, or maybe like an individual one here and there? Yeah, slightly undecided. So things actually, our planning has massively changed since in the last few weeks,

[00:08:58] because my husband tore some ligaments in his knee. When would it be? The beginning of this month while playing football. He still can't walk very well. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. So he's driving and he can now walk the dog around the block, but he can't walk any distance. And I'm like, oh, we're going to Disney in a couple of weeks. And you can't walk a few thousand steps a day. Never mind the number of steps that you do at Disney.

[00:09:26] So because of that, I think we might do more individual lightning lanes for a second. Single lightning, what do they call them now? They were individual lightning lanes when we were there. They're individual lightning lanes. Are they still called that? Yep. I actually bought, when I was there with the girls, I did do that twice. I think we did Seven Dwarfs and Flight of Passage. But I did it very impulsively on the day because it was just before the system changed. Whereas this time I know I'd need to think a little bit further ahead. Right. So we don't have to do that for over another week.

[00:09:56] So I haven't made any firm plans yet. But actually, I do now think originally we weren't going to do any. And now we probably will do some. Maybe have one or two days where we have the multi-pass. And then there probably will be a couple of the individual ones we'll do. Because standing still for a long time as well is going to be quite difficult for him. So long queues for things we really want to do, which we thought would be fine because our kids are older and they're okay with queuing.

[00:10:22] Now we're thinking, he's maybe going to struggle standing in line for an hour. So I think we will try to get them for things like, well, we've never done Tron. So I think we'll try to get it for Tron because this will have a long wait. And maybe some others. And actually, I was thinking, I'm speaking to somebody who knows a lot about this today. Maybe I can pick your brain about what we should be doing. Because with a longer trip, I know that probably we might not really need them.

[00:10:49] But now that he's in a position where he can't really queue for too long, I'm wondering if we might have to think about it. But he'll still be able to do the rides themselves. He'll be able to get into each vehicle and everything. So my natural question is going to be, are you going to rent a wheelchair or a scooter for him? He is a hard no. I've suggested it. I've been saying, look at this. There's this option. He's like, nope, nope, not doing that.

[00:11:16] So he has conceded he's going to take his crutches with him. Okay. And he also, to be fair, he only did the injury maybe four weeks ago. And he's made a massive improvement even in that four weeks. So he's saying we've still got two weeks till we go. Sure. I'll probably improve a lot more. He's going to take his crutches. He's going to take the brace he was given at the hospital for his knee. I am holding that in the back of my mind that we might have to do day of rentals a couple of times if he needs it. Right.

[00:11:45] Crutches in the park sound absolutely miserable to me. I mean, I don't know how you'd get past Main Street with crutches. So I would say, you know, at each of the parks, you could rent a wheelchair or a scooter if you needed to day of spur of the moment. But I would go ahead and just because I think it'll be a better deal and then you could use it at the resort. I would have in your back pocket a scooter rental company's information.

[00:12:15] Because if you rent one on the day of, you might say, no, let's call and get one delivered to the resort. And that way he can ride it straight onto the bus. He can ride it off the bus. Because even at the resort, Riverside, which I know we have not discussed where you're staying yet, but I know you're staying at Riverside. So I'll just reveal it for the audience. Riverside is massive. It's one of the reasons we chose it because we like walking, ironically. Right.

[00:12:41] So it's like even when you get off the bus there, you're going to have a little bit of a ways to get to your room. And once he gets there, he'll realize how many people are utilizing mobility devices. And it's not always people who would need one in everyday life. It's not always the super elderly, if that's what the concern is. There are plenty of younger people who are renting them because you're right. It's one thing to walk around at home.

[00:13:10] It's one thing to walk around in your hometown. But when you talk about the kind of walking that you do at Disney, you don't want him to backtrack on any of the progress that he's made. Yeah. So, you know, you can rent a day of, but I would say do some price checking. Pick one or two that you are interested in and just have the information saved in your phone or on a post-it or something with you. Because I think it will make for a much happier trip for him if he has something all the time.

[00:13:39] Yes. I mean, part of, I think, his reluctance is that two and a half years ago, he tore the tendons in the other knee while we were trampolining. And that was a horrendous. That was actually in the run up to us going to Disney, me and the girls last time. Because 10 months out from that injury, he wasn't walking the dog yet. And we were about to go on holiday, me and the girls. And I wasn't going to be there to do it. Oh. So that was a much bigger injury and it was a horrible recovery.

[00:14:08] And we did go on holiday during that time and he was in a wheelchair and he found it really difficult. And I think the idea of being immobile on another holiday, I think that he's finding it hard to even think about that. So right now he's in a position of it'll be fine. It'll all be fine. But I suspect, actually, had you asked me about the kind of plans, our touring plan for each day and what things would look like. I think if you'd asked me a couple of months ago before or even a month ago before this happened, it might have looked a little bit different to how I'm planning things now.

[00:14:38] I think we'll aim to do kind of half days in the park and have a rest and then go back to the park later. And then if he doesn't feel able to do the later part in the day, he doesn't have to. OK. All right. Let's talk a little bit about Riverside since we've revealed that's where you're staying. You said you chose it because you liked walking. But what else about Riverside appealed to you and have you stayed there before? We've not stayed at Riverside. We have stayed at French Quarter. Oh, OK.

[00:15:05] I mean, so we actually were we were at French Quarter for three nights after our cruise last year. And we did get both along to Riverside and we saw it then. We really, really liked French Quarter. We loved the feel of it, but we probably both like a slightly bigger resort. We're both really like walking normally. And so we quite liked the idea of a bigger resort. And in fact, the girls and I stayed at Caribbean Beach when we were there before. And we really enjoyed it. The girls had no problem with walking around it either. We liked it being a big resort that there was lots to do. So that was definitely an appeal.

[00:15:35] And really, we went for we wanted a moderate because, well, the deluxe is really expensive. But the dining plan that came with that would have been the normal Disney dining plan. And we weren't really looking to sit down to eat every day. We quite liked the idea of quick service where we could be a bit more flexible for the time we were there. Moderate worked well. From the UK, if we'd taken a value, we'd have got one quick service meal a day and that's it. We wouldn't have got any of the other bits.

[00:16:03] So moderate was the only one where we'd have got the actual dining plan. So that's kind of how we came to that. I mean, we did consider Coronado Springs and it was actually a little bit cheaper. But we've never been out there. We don't really know what it's like. We know we like Riverside. We know we like that feel. And we really like Disney Springs. The idea of being just a boat ride away from Disney Springs was really appealing as well. Yeah, that is very nice. And the ability to go over to French Quarter and get beignets if you want them. Definitely. Yes, definitely.

[00:16:31] Yes, we had those for the first time last year and they definitely lived up to the hype. So good. All right. Let's talk about all of your travel plans. So you're leaving on Monday, April 13th to drive. Where are you driving to? We're driving to Manchester, which is in the north of England. There are not many airlines that fly direct from Edinburgh, which is our local airport and particularly not that time of year.

[00:16:57] In fact, none of the Scottish airports and they don't fly every day either. Whereas from the English airports, not at that time of the year, certainly. Whereas from the English airports, they do. And there's more choice. Manchester is about a five hour, if we weren't to stop, it's about a five hour drive away. But the difference in price was massive. I think it was over a thousand pounds cheaper and we could get the dates we wanted as opposed to not really having the dates we wanted and paying more money if we'd gone locally.

[00:17:28] So that's why we're going all the way down there. We are then able to fly direct from Manchester to Orlando, which I do prefer a direct flight if at all possible. Okay. So what time is your direct flight on Tuesday, April 14th? That's a good question. I think it was moved. I think it's now round about lunchtime, round about midday. It was meant to be a little bit earlier in the day, but they did move it. Okay. Do you know approximately what time you'll land in Orlando? Just after four in the afternoon, I think. Yeah.

[00:17:58] Okay. Which will be kind of just after nine o'clock at night hour time. What airline are you using? Virgin Atlantic. Okay. I used Virgin when we went to London a year and a half ago or however long ago that was. We enjoyed it. It was the only time I've flown on that airline. We have flown. We've flown with them before. They are one of the airlines that do fly direct from Edinburgh. And I flew with them when I took the girls before, but they just weren't.

[00:18:24] The days and the price didn't work out for this time, but we enjoyed flying with them. How are you going to get over to Riverside once you have landed? We've booked the Mirrors Coach. I probably would have been quite happy to just get an Uber when we landed. But my children are not super keen on Uber. They don't like getting in the car with a stranger. And we actually, we did do it twice in France last year. They weren't super keen. We have done it multiple times, in fact.

[00:18:54] They just don't really like it. And so when I was going with them last time, I booked the Mirrors Coach to and from the airport. And they really liked it. They said they felt like the holiday started as soon as they were. We never went on it when it was Magical Express. Yes. So they don't have that point of comparison. So they just felt like the holiday started when they got onto that coach. So that was actually their request. Well, Alex has said that before, too. Because of the little cartoons they play or whatever.

[00:19:22] I will say that it will be easier on you to take the Mirrors Coach just in terms of luggage. Because with four of you in one Uber, it would be challenging to find something that will fit all of you plus all four people's bags. With this length of a trip, are you planning on needing to do any laundry? Yes. Okay. Yeah. All right. We do. I quite like doing laundry on holiday. I kind of do, too, and it's weird.

[00:19:49] I like coming back without having all my dirty clothes. So, yeah, it definitely will. And also, I know the kids will be in the pool almost every day and the laundry's right beside the pool. So it would be daft not to. But, yeah, we've done other options. We've hired cars loads of times. We have had a private transfer once from the airport as well. But they were really quite keen on Mirrors. And it was the cheapest option. So it made sense. Yeah. What is your plan for this first day?

[00:20:17] I'm imagining that based on the time change, you're probably just going to be relaxing. Yeah. I mean, I think as well, because we obviously have to go through customs and that can take a while, depending on what time other planes land at. If you're lucky and you're ahead of the others, we've gone through customs MCO relatively quickly. But equally, I've heard horror stories that if you land right after a plane or two, you can be a couple of hours waiting to go through customs there if you're coming from outside the US.

[00:20:44] So, I mean, we then obviously have to get all our luggage and then get the Mirrors, which was not the quickest. So I'd be surprised if we got to the resort much before kind of seven in the evenings. Because our bodies will think that's, you know, 11 o'clock at night. 11? Midnight? No, they'll think it's midnight. So I suspect we'll get some food and head to bed probably. Okay. What type of room did you request? Are you in one single room? Are you in two connecting rooms? Are you in a princess room? No, no, just a standard room.

[00:21:14] And in fact, I'm hoping to get the, what's it called? It's not Alligator Bayou, which is, I think, the five. Oh, are you talking about the mansions? Yes. The mansions. Yes. Okay. Because I know that a lot of them have been refurbished recently. And I think we're most likely to be put there anyway because they're, you know, a lot of the standard rooms that sleep four. So I did ages and ages ago put in a request for a particular building.

[00:21:39] I can't even remember what it was now, but I do remember going on chat with someone and requesting that. So I think I've asked for one of the ones that's relatively near to the bridge that goes over to the pool. Okay. And then you'll also have some quiet pools sprinkled about. So you can, you can do that as well. All right. So let's get into all the other fun. So Wednesday, April the 15th, which is the day that taxes are due in the US.

[00:22:11] What, what is your park plan for the first day? Do you know? Yes. So we have, so because the girls and I have now done the parks three times, we've actually started or we've had our first day in a different park each time. We only have one park that we've never started with. So that's Epcot. So that's what we're starting with. And it's my eldest favorite park. So yeah, that's the only one we've never started with. And it's her favorite. So we are starting with Epcot that day and we are hoping to rope drop Test Track because again, it's a ride we've never done.

[00:22:41] It was down when I was there for the refurbishment when I was there with the girls last time. And the very first time we went, they were quite little and they didn't fancy it. So we've never done it. Hoping to rope drop that. Okay. Yeah. I have written the new, the newly refurbished version and I really liked the changes. We'll have nothing to compare it to. You'll have nothing to compare it to, but I hope you like it. I don't know. I liked the modern feel to it. Okay.

[00:23:06] Have you been to Disney during a festival before and specifically before during Flower and Garden? So yes to the festival, but no to Flower and Garden. And again, that's actually a reason why we were quite keen to go at this time of year. We've been during Food and Wine. In fact, it was Food and Wine the very first time we went. And I think it started towards the end of a couple of our July trips as well. The first trip we did was October. So that was full on Food and Wine. But again, the kids were younger, less adventurous eaters.

[00:23:36] Now they're pretty adventurous. So I think we've all been watching videos about the food at the different booths. So we're quite excited for that. But just to see the park, we actually did one of the things we did when we were at Disney these three days last year after our cruise. We didn't do the parks. We just had a sort of like a staycation at the resort. And we kind of went around and did different things. We went horse riding. And then we decided to get all the different forms of transport to all the parks just to kind of see them.

[00:24:04] It was actually really hard seeing all the parks and not going into them. But the one that was hardest was Epcot because you get the monorail in round and you do the loop round Spaceship Earth. And we could see these amazing topi's and it looked so beautiful. We just wanted to all be going into the park and actually seeing how beautiful it was during Flower and Garden was one of the things that made us book for this year. Yeah, I think you're really, really going to enjoy Flower and Garden. Have you gotten the Food and Wine app? I recommend it every time.

[00:24:33] Faithful listeners may be tired of hearing about it, but I didn't know there was a separate app. Yes. So it's not run by Disney. It's a third party app, but the app is called Food and Wine. So was that for Flower and Garden? It is for every festival. It just happens to be named Food and Wine. Okay. So I think my most recent episode that was posted last week, I think it's in the show notes

[00:25:00] for that one, but it is an app where you can look at the menus for each of the festivals. So whatever festival is going to be going on, when you open it up, it will update to the current festival. And you can look at all the different menus at the different booths and you can mark them the things that you want to try as wished for. And then when you go into the map where it shows all the booths, you can filter your map view so that it only shows pins for the booths that you wished for something at so that you

[00:25:28] can more easily identify the ones that you were aiming to go and try something. And I just find it to be really helpful. And if you want to really, really get into it, you are able to, after you've tried things, go back and give things a rating, take a photo to add to their app so that other people can see it. So definitely worth using. And also, you know, it's just kind of fun to sit there and like mark things that you want to try.

[00:25:52] So I usually find that to be like my couple of days leading up to a trip when I'm going to go to a festival. I sit there and kind of get excited and mark everything. Or sometimes I've even done it in the airport waiting to board a plane to go to the festival. Yeah. So that sounds brilliant. I hadn't heard of that. That somehow completely passed me by. And I obsessively listen to podcasts all the time, but that had passed me by. But I think that will go down really well with everybody else because I think we'll use some

[00:26:21] snack credits for it. But we have a Disney gift voucher left over from last year. My husband and I, I think we, so we all did a DVC tour last year. And so we both got the $200 gift cards. We got this $200 between the four of us. And with it, you know, we was in Disney Springs and within like 15 minutes of walking out, me and the girls had spent all our money. But my husband's not, he's not as big a Disney person. And he's certainly not a Disney merch person. So he's still got his voucher.

[00:26:52] So our plan is to put that money onto one of those wee cards so that we've got some dedicated food boost money. Fantastic. Other than Flower and Garden, what would you say are the things that each of you are looking the most for to at Epcot? I think my eldest is probably really, well, so Spaceship Earth is one of her favorite rides. So she definitely wants to go on that again. We normally go on that multiple times.

[00:27:18] But also she'd really like to catch Voices of Liberty again. We saw them when we went, we went with my mom in 2022. And my mom and my daughter both really loved Voices of Liberty. So definitely hoping to see them. We'd like to try Guardians. We've never done that either. So that's probably for all of us quite important. I think it's just such a nice park for wandering around.

[00:27:44] I think we'll all just enjoy walking around the World Showcase, having our snacks, taking in the atmosphere. Because we'll have, I think we're aiming to go to Epcot maybe three times, a couple of mornings and an evening maybe. We should get plenty of time to hit all the rides we want and then also have time to just wander and enjoy it. Perfect. All right. Let's talk about Thursday, April 16th. Where will you be heading that day? So we're going to go to Magic Kingdom.

[00:28:11] If we've not started on Magic Kingdom, we've always tried to do that the next day because it sort of feels like the holiday really starts when you see the castle, I think. So yeah, we've got that in the morning. We'll sort of see how much. Those first few days, we quite often have plans to park hop the first few days of our holiday. And then because of the jet lag and the time change, we're always exhausted. So I've tried to learn from that. And those first couple of days, we may end up going somewhere in the evening, but we may

[00:28:40] just end up at the one park. So again, for that day, it is just Magic Kingdom. We have booked Crystal Palace for breakfast there. Oh, nice. I love breakfast at Crystal Palace because they have churro waffles. Churro waffles, yeah. Jet, you know, we were okay with the churro waffles. We didn't even bother looking for them on the cruise, even though we knew they were there. But my husband's never tried them. The girls, I took the girls there when I took them on my own.

[00:29:05] And we'd been told this trick or tip of going for the last sort of breakfast sitting because they'll take the breakfast stuff away and bring the lunch stuff out. And you've paid the breakfast price, but you get the breakfast food and the lunch food. And that worked really well last time. So we're crossing our fingers the same thing happens again this time. Also, Winnie the Pooh is my favourite Disney character. We have actually, I've managed to convince my family to do some group Disney bounding.

[00:29:33] And this is one of the group Disney bounds that I have convinced them to do this day while we go to Crystal Palace. Okay, I can't wait to see that. Is everybody else going to be into it? Are they doing it sort of like, okay, mom? My girls are into it. My husband is going along with it because he knows that I'm into it. Happy wife, happy life. Yeah, pretty much. All right. What are the priorities for each of you for Magic Kingdom? So we really want to try to do Tiana's.

[00:30:04] We have done, we did it when it was, gosh. Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain, that's the name. We did it when it was Splash Mountain. But actually it was when the girls and I were there last time. It had very, very recently opened, like a week or two before. And it was the, what's it called, where you have to sign up to the... Oh, the previews? The virtual queue. It was the virtual queue. The virtual queue, okay. Yeah, and we couldn't get it. The couple of days that we were in the park, we couldn't get it. You know, I went on at the time, it opened and it just had gone so quickly. It really recently reopened.

[00:30:34] So we didn't get to do Tiana's. So Tiana's is definitely a priority. At some point while we do Magic Kingdom, we love the cinnamon buns at Gaston's Tavern. So going there for some cinnamon buns, we think about those whenever we're not there. That's quite high up in the list of priorities. There are things we've not done. So we haven't done Tron either. So we're all hoping to do that. I'm trying to think what else. Oh, my husband's wanting the rest of us to go on Space Mountain because he's done it and we haven't.

[00:31:04] I get quite motion sick. Just in life in general, I really suffer with motion sickness. And I sometimes suffer with it on rides. Mainly more screen-based light. Like I can't ride Ratatouille. I've tried it three times now. And I'm actually only in Paris. But I always feel sick. I thought I was going to throw up when I was doing Flight of Passage. So I do, you know, I do sometimes feel motion sick. It doesn't tend to be on coasters. But I'm always just a little bit wary of that.

[00:31:33] So I haven't done some of the more intense rides. But hoping to give it a go because I've got quite a brave 11-year-old who likes to do everything. You know, she decided at 7 Expedition Everest was her favourite ride. And Tower of Terror was her second favourite because they were the best. So she's quite brave. And I think she encourages me to be a bit more brave. Do you think the girls will go ahead and do something even if you say, you know what, I'm not going to do it this time. I'm going to sit out. Would they go ahead with Nick and do it without you?

[00:32:02] So the person who is most likely to sit out any of them is probably my eldest. She's not a thrill rider at all. And probably sometimes she will sit. In fact, last time, because I had the girls on my own. And because my youngest is into thrill rides, there was things she wanted to do. So my eldest won't do like Expedition Everest and Tower of Terror and things. But last time, you know, she was 12, almost 13. So I just left her in a shop and she just wandered around. And we, I just called her when we came out of the ride, which worked out quite well.

[00:32:30] So I think she's probably the one who's most likely to sit something out. I'll probably give it a go. But she even, she said she thinks Tron looks quite good fun. She's just not really a drop person. Okay. All right. Well, I'm glad she's going to give Tron a go because it is very fun and it's really, really smooth. So hopefully she'll enjoy that. All right. Any, besides the cinnamon rolls, any other snacks that you were aiming for at Magic Kingdom? Zoe's really keen to try the spring rolls.

[00:33:01] Okay. And we've never, No, we've never had those. And I'm not quite sure why. I'm vegetarian. None of the rest of my family is. But that probably, probably sways things a bit because when I'm the one who does the most research and obviously I don't tend to pay attention to things like a cheeseburger string roll. It's not going to be high on my agenda. So I just don't pay attention to it. And because I'm doing the planning a lot of the time previously, if I've not known about it and talked about it, then other people haven't known about it either.

[00:33:29] Whereas now my girls are older, they're seeing things on YouTube. So my youngest only has YouTube. She doesn't have any other kind of social media or anything. But my eldest is, you know, 14 and a half and she does see things on other, like on Instagram and things. So I think now they see things themselves. So there's probably more this time that they're asking to do. And the cheeseburger string, string rolls is one of those. Okay. All right. Friday, April the 17th. Which person are you going to?

[00:33:57] I'm hoping we'll rope drop Animal Kingdom. Depending on how jet lagged we are, we may or may not be there right at the beginning. I think I will get us, well, not by us. I do not mean me because I was nearly sick doing Flight of Passage last time, but I'll try and get a lightning lane for the other three to do that. And that way, maybe if we're not there, bang on rope drop, I don't think it'll matter so much. My heart had broken a little bit about how little there is to do Animal Kingdom because it's normally my favourite park.

[00:34:25] And actually one of my favourite things there is getting the train out to Rafiki's Planet Watch. I love going out there. I love the art class. I love the animals out there. And I was so sad to find out quite close, relatively close to the holiday that that wasn't going to be open. So it does feel a little bit like there'll be quite a few things closed to Animal Kingdom. But then on the other hand, it's just quite a nice park for wandering around.

[00:34:48] So I think, yeah, as long as we can do the safaris, as long as we can do the Lion King show, we'll almost certainly have to do Everest except for my eldest and some Cali River Rapids. But I think a lot of the time we'll just get snacks and wonder. And for each of the parks, are you going to be going to each of them at least twice? Yes, probably. Animal Kingdom's the only one I'm unsure about. We normally do like to go two or three times there. But because there's less, I guess we'll see.

[00:35:18] If we got everything done this one time, then maybe we wouldn't go back. My other thought is maybe it might be nice to go back later in the day for a couple of hours as well, because we have had good luck with things being a bit quieter towards the very end of the day with Animal Kingdom as well. And then because it closes so early, we could always go into something else afterwards. But I mean, maybe one of the good things about, you know, having this day here is that you said that you wanted to kind of learn from your past lessons and not go so hard the first

[00:35:47] couple of days as you get over the jet lag. So if you if you rope drop and you're you manage to get everything done that you want to get done, at least for that one day, even if you're going to be repeating the park later, you're not going to probably feel as guilty and like you're not taking advantage of your time if maybe you call it an early day and go back to the resort and swim, maybe go to Disney Springs. So I do in my mind, I sort of have thought in my mind, maybe that evening we could go

[00:36:16] into Hollywood Studios. I want us to see Fantasmic. And I sort of thought, well, maybe it'd be nice to go into Hollywood Studios. We've struggled with Hollywood Studios in an evening before we've had much better luck getting on rides when rope dropping. I managed to do quite a lot of things in the first couple of hours, but in the evening, it has always seemed to be quite busy. But we did think we went in the evening later in the evening to try to really just catch the villain show and Fantasmic. And if we got you know, if we get to do another

[00:36:44] ride, great. But if we don't just to even manage to do those, we thought we might try to do that that day because the day after will be our first rest day. Okay. All right. Well, we'll see what actually ends up happening. What are you going to do on your rest day? I'm going to say rest. We want to go to Blizzard Beach. So it's not going to be super restful. And my husband does love all the slides and I'm hoping he'll be okay doing those with his knee. The issue would probably be the constant climbing

[00:37:14] up the stairs to the top for them, I guess. I think he'll be fine when he's actually on the ride and then when he's in the water. It would maybe just be the climbing. But again, we can take the whole day. We don't have to rush around. There can be plenty of resting in between. We're not planning on doing anything other than Blizzard Beach during the day. Okay. Yeah, hopefully he'll be okay with his knee. You know, he's got to pace himself. Yes. All right. Sunday, April the 19th.

[00:37:42] Yeah, so we're hoping to rope drop Magic Kingdom again because I think because we're not wanting to do too many lightning lanes and, you know, I don't really want to buy the multi-pass too many times. We're hoping to use rope drop to get quite a bit done. We've had really good luck in the past before with rope dropping Magic Kingdom and getting a lot done in the first two or three hours. So our plan that day would be to rope drop Peter Pan because we're hoping to do rope drop Seven Dwarfs the first time we go and then maybe get over second rope drop

[00:38:12] to the sort of Pirates Tiana sort of area afterwards. Really sad Big Thunder won't have opened. I know. So yeah, that's disappointing. That's one of my favourite rides in Paris. But for you, you just know the one in Paris is much better anyway. Okay. All right. It is. It's really good. It's really intense and it goes underwater to get out to the island there as well.

[00:38:38] I know. Everybody says I'm so excited to try it. I love Big Thunder pretty much. I mean, I was going to say pretty much everywhere I've ridden it, which is inclusive of Florida and California. But I don't know. It's just it's such a fun coaster to me. So I really enjoy it. And I'm looking forward to this renovation being done because they're adding some of the features like the explosions and things that happen at the California version, which I've always really

[00:39:05] liked. Do you have any dining reservations this day? No, we don't. We'll probably just be using the quick service dining plan that day. And we have a reservation for the evening. One of the things we're aware of, which I hadn't been aware when I'd booked is that it's a run Disney weekend that weekend. Is it Springtime Surprise? Yes. And I did not know that when we booked it. And I don't actually know what kind of impact that has. We don't think we've ever been there when there's been a race weekend before.

[00:39:34] Yeah, I don't know what kind of impact Springtime Surprise has. I do know that the princess races, when I went for my one day down and back with Alex recently, I didn't realize that it was happening until a couple days before we went because the year before, it was a week earlier, and we had run and it's the only run Disney race we've we've done. And so I just expected it was going to be over. And then a couple days before our day was coming up, I was like, Oh, no,

[00:40:01] there's a princess race. And you know, what made me realize is I went on to book our lightning lanes for the day. And Guardians was already sold out. And I was like, Oh, God, that means it's busy. So and it was so Springtime Surprise, maybe the same. We'll see. Yeah, so I have done a bit of reading about it. And what I read seems to suggest it's not as big a race weekend as princess or wine and dine. But obviously, it's still going to have an impact.

[00:40:30] However, because we just don't know that impact is going to be all we I think all we can really do is go ahead and attempt what we're attempting. So we are hoping to go to Epcot that evening. But I don't know whether Epcot on a Sunday evening on race weekend is a stupid idea. But even if we only get to wander around and, you know, just enjoy the ambience, I don't think we'd mind. We have a

[00:40:53] we have a space 220 lounge reservation at Epcot that evening. And so even though I said, yeah, we're not doing extra food, we do have a few extra food things. And we've never been to space 220. And my husband is really interested in space. He's been twice to Kennedy Space Center once on his own, and once with the rest of us. And in fact, it was the one of the ways I convinced him to ever

[00:41:18] consider going to Florida and Disney in the first place years ago was like, Oh, we could go to you could go to you could go to Kennedy Space Center on your own for the day. And I'll look after the children. And that was enough to convince him. So he really is he's so interested in everything space related. So I think that that would be something that might be fun to do. Yeah, I'm sure he'll enjoy it. And I think the lounge is a nice way to go because then you're not locked

[00:41:43] into the prefix. Yes. Yeah. Even if we just get some little appetizers and a drink each, then it's hopefully not as pricey as that full meal. Okay, so what park are you going to the next day? Is it going to be a Hollywood Studios day? Yes, we're hoping to rope drop Hollywood Studios. And we had an amazing time. The girls and I maybe partly helped by the fact we were staying at Caribbean Beach. And we were in Jamaica, which was right beside the hub of the Skyliner. And from leaving our room,

[00:42:13] you know, walking to the hub and getting the Skyliner over to Hollywood Studios, it took us about 10 minutes. It was so quick. It was just so I think because of that, we got there very early. We're very near the front of the pack. And they opened slinky early both days that we were there. Mm hmm. I think they had us on it at like 10 past eight, even though the early entry hours apparently didn't start till half eight because we were on and off it before half eight. Because in fact,

[00:42:39] we got off it and thought we'll go on Toy Story Mania. But it wasn't open because it wasn't 8.30 yet. But they were running Alien Swirling Saucers. So we managed to get on slinky and Alien Swirling Saucers before the early entry even started. So in my head, which meant that we then did Toy Story Mania and Mickey and Minnie's before the regular day guests were even in the park. Wow. Yeah. That's got to be the most efficient early entry I've ever seen.

[00:43:05] So I don't know if it was just unusual because I spoke to somebody at the time and they were saying they don't always let you on slinky that early. We really like they were running it by 10 past quarter past eight. We were in line for about five past eight. And they were running it about 10 past quarter past. And yeah, that was all so quick. And there was nobody waiting for the other rides really. So I don't know if that's I don't know if that's giving me a false idea of how it can

[00:43:31] be actually our second Hollywood Studios rope drop day last time it was torrential rain first thing. And so it wasn't very busy, which again meant that we were able to walk on to all the Toy Story rides without a wait because there was hardly anyone there. So I think I might have a false idea of how how much we might be able to do. But we're going to attempt to recreate some of that. Okay, so Slinky Dog is the aim on this day. Yes, definitely.

[00:43:59] And what are the things that everyone's looking forward to in Hollywood Studios? So I don't know whether it will be this day or a different day, but we have never done any of the Star Wars rides, the newer ones. Okay, so my husband's done what's the other one called the older one that makes everyone sick? Oh, Star Tours. Yes, that's it. He's fine. He doesn't get remotely sick about anything. So he's done that and really he really enjoys it. But we haven't done Rise and we haven't done Millennium Falcon. And they were open.

[00:44:29] The girls and I didn't want to do it last time without my husband because we thought he would probably quite enjoy them. He's not a super Star Wars fan, but we just thought he would like the rides. And the time before when we were there with my mum, the girls were a bit younger and my mum wasn't going to be doing them. So we just gave them a miss that time too. So we're quite excited to try them. Okay. All right. What else are you looking forward to for Hollywood Studios? We've booked Roundup Rodeo for lunch, which is our only other reservation. So we just have those

[00:44:55] three, Crystal Palace, Space 220 and Roundup Rodeo. My husband really likes all you care to enjoy type meals. And he likes the idea of the barbecue food. It's not something I think, I think in the States probably you get far more barbecue restaurants. It's not really something you get a lot of in Scotland. So for us, that's a bit of a novelty and it probably doesn't have to be super high quality for us to be quite excited by it. And even though I'm vegetarian, there seem to be

[00:45:23] pretty good options for me as well. And the theming is cute. Yeah. And of course, I've convinced everybody that we need a group Toy Story bound on that day. Oh, good. Okay. Because we're going to that restaurant. That's funny. All right. What's happening on Tuesday, April 20th? So that's another break day. We do tend to, when we have our trips, do either two or three days at a time and then have a break day. And just because the length of the trip this time, we're doing three

[00:45:53] days, break day, two days, break day, three days. So we have no set plans for this day. We may, the girls have sort of spoken about wanting to go to maybe outlets or Target or something like that. We might convince them to get, depends how much they want to, whether they'll get an Uber. We'll see. We'll see what they think. We might go into the mini golf because we have that included and we really enjoyed that last time. We might just stay at our resort. There's some things

[00:46:19] at Riverside that look really fun. The bike things that everybody, I think possibly we call them Surrey bikes and you call them Surrey bikes. That's what we call them too. Yeah. Like, so Surrey is a place in England. So I think we just pronounce it like that, like the place. But I have heard other people calling them Surrey bikes. And at first I wasn't sure if that was the same thing, but I think it is. No, I've always said Surrey bikes. Okay. So that's what, so we wondered about doing that. We thought that might be quite good fun.

[00:46:46] My husband has been able to cycle. He's been out on his bike. That seems to be a little bit less strenuous on his knee. So that might be something quite nice for him to do. Or we might just head along to Disney Springs. That day is pretty open so that we can see how we feel, how tired we are. I think also with the Surrey bikes is if it is bothering his knee, you've got three other people to pick up the work. Yes. Yes. And if our kids had been younger before, that wouldn't have worked. But actually

[00:47:11] my eldest is taller than I am. So she's probably going to be like pretty good. And actually even my 11 year old is pretty tall for her age. So I suspect they'll be, and they're probably better at cycling than I am as well. So they'll hopefully build pickups in the slack. Wednesday, April the 22nd. So we're hoping to rope drop Epcot again. Okay. And maybe rope drop Frozen this time. We really like the Frozen ride, but we suspect that

[00:47:37] our best chance of getting on without too long a wait is rope dropping it. And because our other Epcot rope drop day is heading for test track, we're going to aim to go for Frozen this time. Mm-hmm. Did you see all of the news about the Frozen land or whatever they're calling it in Disneyland Paris opening? Yes. Yes. It looks really cool. It does look really cool. I'm hoping that people go to Disneyland Paris quite a lot here.

[00:48:03] You can imagine we're only an hour and a half flight away. So it's quite common for people to go. So I'm kind of expecting to hear people going over the next few months and seeing what they're saying about it. It does look really cool. Mm-hmm. Any, well, you said you already did all your dining reservations. So no more dining reservations. So today we'll just be kind of doing what you haven't gotten to do yet. Yeah. Thursday, April 23rd, which park? Yeah, I should say actually on Wednesday, we're hoping we'll do Magic Kingdom in the evening.

[00:48:31] I really want to do the, see the Starlight Parade. Mm-hmm. So I'm really hoping we'll do that that evening because our other Magic Kingdom days are not in the evening. So that would probably be our only opportunity to see it. Although there's a couple of evenings we've got that are relatively open that we could, I think that's the thing, I guess, with a longer trip, you maybe are less kind of fixed with your plans because it does depend on how tired you get or you might end up popping out, you know, on a day where

[00:49:00] you've just got something planned for the morning. So we might have gone before then, but if not, we want to go to Magic Kingdom that evening too. And maybe, again, my girls are not, I really like Happily Ever After, but my girls are not massive fireworks fans or certainly they weren't last time. So they're quite keen on the idea of riding rides during Happily Ever After. Okay. Yeah. No, there, I think that some of the best times that I've had on rides in Magic

[00:49:26] Kingdom are during the fireworks and specifically the ones where you can see the fireworks from what you're riding. So like People Mover, Tiana's, those are good ones. If it was, if it was open, Big Thunder. So hopefully, hopefully they'll get to do that. Would they potentially go do that themselves while you watch fireworks and Nick rest his knee? Don't know. I don't imagine he would like

[00:49:54] the crowds. The only time the girls and I saw it, we were so lucky. It was a really, really wet evening and the park emptied out and we decided to go to the hub to see the fireworks five minutes before Happily Ever After started. And we walked right into the hub. We had so much space that I could have had my arms out either side of me and spun around and I wouldn't have touched anybody in the middle of

[00:50:20] the hub because it was empty because of the rain. So my only experience of seeing it, it was so pleasant and not, you know, didn't have people near me. So I'm not sure how I'd feel either about the really intense crowds that you kind of see on other people's vlogs and you hear people talking about. So I don't know. I suspect we'd probably all do. He's not a sentimental Disney person. So I don't think he'd be the least bit interested really in coming to see that. Yeah, I was just imagining him

[00:50:49] wanting to just sit and relax after a long day of walking around. If he was being a people mover, he could maybe there'd be the opportunity, you know, when you stay on and you kind of do this. Yes. Yep. Yeah. I think that would be his ideal really. Yeah. Well, I'm hoping that based on the dates that you're going, that perhaps after springtime surprise is over, that the crowds will lighten up because this doesn't really align with many spring breaks that I've heard of. Like most of the spring

[00:51:18] breaks are typically earlier in April or sometimes even like late March. So maybe that will work in your favor. I mean, if I'm brutally honest, it doesn't completely align with our spring break either. It would take the girls out of school a little bit. So in the UK, most schools either have the week either side of Easter. So some schools have broken up, but in Scotland, most of the time, we just have the first two weeks of April. And that tends to be pretty consistent for us,

[00:51:45] regardless of when Easter is. Easter can be two weeks before that. And we still just have those two weeks most of the time. So we actually are taking the girls out for a week because it's really our last opportunity. My eldest will start doing her exam years next year. And then she'll, because of the age gap between them, we'll then just be every year. We won't be going on holiday this time of the year for like the next six or seven years. So

[00:52:14] we decided, so yeah, we decided as a one-off, we've never taken them out of school before for a holiday in their whole schooling. So this is the first time we've done it. It is for a whole week, but it does mean that it doesn't even align with the UK holidays. The second week doesn't align either. Yeah. It's fine. They'll be fine. They can make up their work. They're both good at school. So I'm hoping it'll be fine. I mean, certainly the primary school knows,

[00:52:40] they were really like, yeah, whatever. It's her last year of primary school. I don't know, elementary school in the States. It's her last year. They were quite like, yeah, go have a great time. I haven't said to the high school, but I think they'd be okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think for an 11 year old, what grade is that here? Yeah, that's probably junior high. Okay. So it's still, it's still our equivalent of elementary.

[00:53:07] Yeah. Elementary goes through fifth for, at least for us here in the, in the city. And then junior high is six through, no, excuse me, six through eighth. And then high school is ninth through 12th. Okay. So we do, to be honest, the Scottish system is completely different even to the English system. Our kids go to primary school from age, roughly age five to 12 and then from 12 to 18 high school. And that's it. Okay. Yeah. That's very different. Okay. It's different even from England.

[00:53:35] They, I couldn't even, I can't really even describe what they do, but it's different. All right. Thursday, April 23rd. Yeah. So we have to rope drop Hollywood Studios for the second time this day. I think because again, we'd had this good Hollywood Studios rope dropping last time. I had this idea that if we had a second chance to do that, then even if we weren't quite as successful with our first Hollywood Studios

[00:54:01] rope drop, we'd hopefully get quite a few rides then. We love the shows at Hollywood Studios as well though. So we're really wanting the opportunity to fit all of those into. Sad there's not going to be any Muppets. And also sad that it sounds like the Indiana Jones is a somewhat reduced show just now as well. It is. Since pre-pandemic, they have not done the audience participation part, but also my understanding is the boulder is not running right now. So we'll see. We'll get what we get.

[00:54:31] Right. Any, any other plans on this day for Hollywood Studios? And are you hopping parks? So I think we, after an afternoon swim, relax, probably possibly the last one on the trip, we thought we might see if we could hop to Animal Kingdom just for a couple of hours because that, we haven't had any other Animal Kingdom time other than that first week. So it sort of saved this because I thought if we want to go just for a couple of hours to see if there's a couple of last things we want to do, we can, but then we would still have the rest of the evening to start to

[00:55:01] get packed up. Is your, is your flight on Friday, April the 24th? It is. And you're doing mirrors back to the airport? I haven't booked it yet, but we probably will. Okay. What time is your flight out that day? It's at half eight. So in the evening. So they would be picking us up about half three, I think. I think they do five hours before for an international. Yeah, it's quite a bit more. And lately with how the security has been going at airports. Yeah. The one time I think maybe you

[00:55:31] need that much time. Well, also when we did, so we did it, we did mirrors, the girls and I did mirrors last time. We'd been mainly at Caribbean Beach. We had three nights at the Polynesian doing, renting DVC points at the end. And then we got the bus from Polynesian to the airport. It was like five hours before. Surely we won't need that. We, we only just got to the airport the three hours before our flight. It took two hours between going around the other resorts and then driving

[00:55:59] to the airport. They went to terminal C and then they went to terminal B. It did take two hours. So it probably was five hours probably was a good shout. So that means that because the flights that either, I think last time our flight wasn't until something like 11 o'clock at night. So we didn't have to leave so early. Whereas this time, if it's picking us up at half three in the afternoon, we've probably really only got the morning in a park. So we're thinking if there's still stuff that we've not done, we'll go to Magic Kingdom. But if we've done all the rides we want

[00:56:28] to do in all the parks, we would maybe just pop over to Disney Springs. Okay. Then we're not be nice to leave that open ended. So just how you're feeling. I think quite a lot of it has become even more open ended than it was when I first started thinking about it as well, just because I don't know how my husband's going to get on. Yep. That will be the big question for me when we talk again. Yes. How did he do? Okay, well, I hope that he is is okay to do everything he wants to do. And I

[00:56:57] hope that he will consider getting a mobility device just so that he does not make it worse. But who knows? Like you said, it's two weeks away. There's still time to heal. Yes. You don't know yet. Okay. Yes. All right, Anna, we have had so much fun chatting about this trip. And I just I wish all the magic in the world for you, especially when it comes to his knee. Thank you. And just have a

[00:57:23] wonderful time and be safe. And we will talk when you get back. Thank you so much, Virginia. I look forward to it. Thank you to Anna for joining me on the show. The post trip report episode is out and ready for your listening pleasure. Make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast on whatever platform you're listening on now so that you will always have the latest episode ready for you. That is all for now. And as always, keep daydreaming about where you long to be.