travel – Five Feet High Thoughts

While on my most recent trip to Walt Disney World, my friend and I took a day off from the parks to visit the highly anticipated Disney Springs. For those who don’t know, Disney Springs, formally known as Downtown Disney is a massive outdoor shopping, dining, and entertainment hub. While there are many Disney themed shops, there are also several other stores not affiliated with Disney whatsoever. There is so much to do and see here, and lots of money to be spent (if you’re not careful) and I will give you a rundown of just how our day was spent discovering Disney Springs.

After 3 long consecutive days at the parks, Saturday was a much-needed sleeping-in day and a day which we needed to simply go at a slower, less scheduled pace. While I mentioned before that I don’t pre-plan a ton of my trip when I go to the parks, with dining reservations and fast passes, you are bound by some sort of time keeping a schedule for part of the day; yet none of that was happening today! We were able to sleep in and get a good rest, and we didn’t head over to Disney Springs until about 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

Upon arrival, we headed to D-Luxe Burger restaurant for lunch. This is a coined as a family-friendly spot for burgers and fries in a rustic atmosphere (though there is plenty of outdoor seating overlooking the water and other shops). For about $30 you get two gourmet burgers loaded with toppings, a generously sized fries for sharing, and two beverages. Of course, my friend and I shared this combo. D-Luxe also offers this delicious garlic-mayo for dipping; it was so good! They will cook your burger to your liking whether that is medium rare or well done etc. It was a really gorgeous day, so we definitely took advantage of eating outside; probably the nicest weather of the whole trip, a high of about 24 degrees Celcius.

After lunch, we began to walk about the docks at Disney Springs and check out the shops. Of course, instant favourites of ours were: Market Place Co-Op, Star Wars Galactic Outpost, Disney Pin Traders, Candy Cauldron, World of Disney, Ghiradelli Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop (yes we snagged some delicious ice cream and free chocolate samples!), Disney Style, and Ever After Jewelry Co. & Accessories. Unfortunately, Saturday was the day where I was feeling ill, and quite frankly, couldn’t really take advantage of all that Disney Springs had to offer because we had to leave a little earlier than we had planned. Nevertheless, we did have great success shopping! I was able to score a fantastic Star Wars sequence jacket & a Loungefly Star Wars bag; I had limited myself to only 2 items for the trip so I was really happy to find these.

There really is so much to do and see at Disney Springs; they have a movie theatre as well as live entertainment, mini golf, and so much more. When the weather is great, it is so easy to spend the whole day roaming the grounds and checking out all the shops and stops. I know that many people take 2 or 3 days out of their trip to explore Disney Springs, and it is easy to see why. Luckily, we were able to return to Disney Springs on the last day of our trip to do a few more things and indulge in Sprinkles Cupcakes! I would say that the shops at Springs offered some items you couldn’t find in the parks, which was nice to see. On that same note, if there was something you saw at the park you absolutely wanted but didn’t get, it is not guaranteed that you will be able to pick it up at Disney Springs. One way to check for sure is to ask a Castmember (Disney World employee) at the park if the item is available anywhere else; they have a handy app that tells them where the items are located. Also, on your My Disney Experience App, under the shopping section, you can look for items by name or franchise and the map will show you what other locations have it. For example, if you absolutely need that Mary Poppins bag, the app will tell you if you can get it at Epcot, Magic Kingdom or Disney Springs. Keep it in mind, next time you’re searching for something but remember that technology isn’t perfect. For example, the app didn’t say that my bag was available at Disney Springs, and it was! So sometimes you gotta roll the dice or take your chances; you may be in for a surprise.

Before you head to Disney Springs, check out their website for a list of all the shops and entertainment events going on. I recommend planning out at least a few of the things you want to see, and getting an idea of where they are located in relevance to each other. For dinner, almost every place requires reservations, so keep this in mind. You can call ahead, or use the Open Table website to look at some available timeslots (if any). Last, but certainly not least, have a budget! It’s so easy to get caught up in everything Disney Springs has to offer, but you don’t want to break the bank doing so!

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for my next blog on our adventures in the Animal Kingdom.

The second day of my vacation to Disney World was spent at Epcot. The common belief amongst many avid Disney World vacationers is that Epcot is not a park which requires an all-day visit, but I strongly disagree. My favourite thing about visiting Epcot is that you can really take your time exploring all the different pavilions at the world showcase, and honestly, because of all the vast cultural experiences that are available, the amount of delicious food you can eat is unmatched! Let me tell you more about my day at Epcot.

Firstly, for anyone who is unfamiliar with Epcot, it is one of the four parks that make up Walt Disney World. The core of Epcot is the World Showcase; a section of the park dedicated to immersing you in the culture of other countries around the world. While touring the showcase, you feel as though you’ve stepped into Mexico, Italy, France, Morocco, China, England, and more. Each section of the showcase provides not only delicacies from these countries, but you’ll find buildings and streets similar to those you’d see there, as well as music and other performers based off of that culture. You really feel as though you’ve stepped into the streets of those places all over the world. The showcase offers shops where you can buy authentic merchandise and items from these countries as well; England has the most dope tea and biscuits collection, while China offers an amazing selection of artwork, jewelry, and collectables. There is more to Epcot than the world showcase, but this is definitely a section of the park you’ll want to dedicate much of your time!

Another interesting thing to mention about Epcot is that it constantly has special events going on. For example, in the fall, it offers the International Food and Wine Festival, and while we were there recently, the Festival of the Arts was happening. The Festival of the Arts provides not only different foods and special performers to Epcot, but it allows artists to showcase their work and visitors of the park to purchase all sorts of art pieces. Sometimes, the artists were even there to talk about their work or sign a piece for you when you purchased it. As you journey through the park, you could stop and look at some amazing variations of artwork both Disney and non-Disney related.

Alas, we arrived at Epcot around 10 am on Thursday morning; allowing ourselves to sleep in a little after such a busy day at Hollywood Studios. We had some time to spare before our first Fast Pass at Mission Space, so we decided to stop and say hello to Pluto who was the first character greeting only steps away from the park’s main entrance. After this, we decided to grab a quick snack for breakfast and roam around the park for a bit to check out those art exhibits I was mentioning previously. We stumbled upon some cool real-life statues that symbolized the elements and snagged some pictures with them; one of the statues kept tickling my friend and it was pretty hilarious. After some other quick browsing, we headed over to Mission Space for our first Fast Pass. We selected the Green mission over Orange; we weren’t ready for such intense astronaut training before lunch.

After a successful Space mission, we stopped quickly at one of the gift shops, then headed over to San Fransokyo to meet Baymax. With a less than 20 minute wait, we were satisfied with our care and headed over to say hello to Joy and Sadness. These two are always fun to interact with, especially since they are polarizing emotions of one another, but Sadness always tries her best to be a trooper and never says no to a picture or two. After these character greetings, we made our way to Spaceship Earth for our second Fast Pass of the day. Once our trip around the earth was complete, it was time to head to Italy for lunch!

I had heard so many amazing things about Via Napoli restaurant in Italy within Epcot’s world showcase, so I was looking forward to trying the traditional woodfire Italian pizza. My friend and I were able to share the individual size pepperoni, and it was everything great pizza should be! An interesting fact about the world showcase is that every employee who works at the different countries is actually from there; all of the staff at Via Napoli were from Italy and our waitress even spoke some Italian to us. Again, another way that Disney will immerse you in the experiences! After lunch, we had some time to spare before our next Fast Pass, so we took the opportunity to walk around some of the countries and take some pictures as well as browse the shops and artists’ booths.

Before long, we found ourselves travelling past China and Morocco and in Norway; it was time to ride Frozen Ever After (yay for a fast pass), and upon exiting we stumbled upon some Vikings! Just a note, Vikings don’t like hugs or photographs, but they are very entertaining! We fled from the Vikings with roaring laughter and walked right into the Sommerhus to meet Elsa and Anna; literally, there was no wait or line at all. Elsa and Anna were a delight. After meeting these gals, we were feeling like having a snack, so it was time to grab a bite to eat from Mexico!

Mexico is one of my favourite spots in all of Epcot’s World Showcase, so I am always sure to stop here and grab a snack. This time we indulged in empanadas and margaritas, and of course my favourite, churros! I love Mexico because the entertainment and artwork and collectables are most fascinating to me; I always have such a wonderful time looking through all that the Mexican Pavillion has to offer. Of course, we made sure to say hello to our friend Donald Duck while in Mexico too!

With churros in hand, we left World Showcase to go utilize some more of our Fast Passes. We were able to ride Soarin’ and The Seas with Nemo and Friends. Ralph and Vanelope were also doing character greetings, so we waited for a short time to snag some photos with them. By this time, the sun was setting but we had more of the World Showcase to see! We headed over to France, England and the UK, and a few other spots. By sunset, you get to hear some amazing bands and watch some wicked displays; not to mention roaming the “streets” of France at nighttime is magical!

Our day at Epcot was coming to an end; it was almost 9 pm. Our stomachs were full of incredible food and our feet were sore from an epic day of adventure. There was sunshine for most of our day, and the temperature was steady around the 16-18 degree mark, an improvement from the previous day. It was off to get some much-needed rest for tomorrow’s voyage to the Magic Kingdom!

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for my next blog…

Tag: travel

Discovering Disney Springs

My Adventure in Epcot at Walt Disney World