What we look forward to when we visit Walt Disney World in April 2018

Published: February 27, 2018 / Last Updated: February 27, 2018 / By: Arvid Bux

At the end of April we will visit Walt Disney World Resort again. This time it will be in combination with a visit to Disney’s Vero Beach and our first Disney Cruise. However, we will spend the biggest portion of our time at Walt Disney World Resort.

Flower and Garden Festival

While I have been there now two times, and Christina numerous times, it is always exciting to plan and see what you want to do. When we visit Walt Disney World Resort, the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival will be on. Having seen this festival in 2016 and 2017, we are super excited that we have a third opportunity to experience this festival. We did make a promise that we also have to visit the resort at a different time so that we experience the parks in a different setting.

At Epcot we have to try all the different food. We plan on spending two days at the park, so we should have enough time to visit some of the booths and look at the food that will be served. Of course there is a lot of other things to see like all the topiaries and the butterflies.

One extra thing we will do is the Royal Tea Garden Tour. This 18 dollar guided tour of the English Tea Garden will give you some great insights on the teas that grow around the UK pavilion.

Magic Kingdom Park

While Magic Kingdom is always great to visit, there are a few things we definitely can’t wait to do again. The first one is ride Seven Dwarfs Mine train with the family. We will start of our trip with seven family members, and SDMT always makes us happy. We have therefore booked a Fastpass on the first day when we visit Magic Kingdom.

Other rides we can’t wait to experience is Splash Mountain (one of my favorites), Big Thunder Mountain (just because almost every park has this one), Pirates of the Caribbean (with the new scene featuring the Red Head, which we already have gotten in Paris) and the Barnstormer. While there are several other great rides at Magic Kingdom Park these are the ones we are most looking forward to.

Now experience wise, we will visit Talking Mickey one more time. Rumours have it that end of May Mickey will stop talking. Therefore we really have to visit our pal one more time.

And while we know people have strong political preferences, we are going to visit The Hall of Presidents. We really want to experience the new additions and changes, and we are just curious to how President Trump looks like and sounds. This is far from a political statement, but more that we have an interest in this.

Parade and Fireworks

While we will see the Festival of Fantasy parade, we won’t scope out our spot hours before. The parade is okay, but we are not a huge fan. We do look forward to dance on the street with the Move It, Shake It, Dance and Play It street party.

As a great ending to the day we can’t wait to see Happily Ever After. We watched the first showing via the Disney Parks Blog live stream and are excited to finally see it at the park. We will for sure see this show several times as we also plan on doing the Plaza Garden viewing party.

For food we are at least trying to get in at the Skipper Canteen. We have heard some great things about it, and want to try it ourselves now.

Epcot

As mentioned before, we will try to experience as much as possible from the Flower and Garden Festival, but there is a lot more to experience at Epcot.

We will have lunch at the German Pavilion. This has become a family tradition and we can’t wait to taste some bratwurst and drink some German beer while we listen to the Oktoberfest band.

For rides we always default to Test Track and Soarin’. To make sure we use all FPs we toss in the occasional Meet Disney Pals, Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land. Some other rides like the Three Caballeros, the French and Canada Pavilions we will just do a walk-on. We just love to walk around at Epcot and soak it all in.

Besides the German Pavilion and all the booths that offer food, we of course have to also enjoy some funnel cake. Most likely this will be our dessert while we wait for Illuminations – Reflections of Earth to start.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios

While this park has a lot going on, and not in the best possible way, we will still visit it twice. Once on May 4th for anything Star Wars related.

Besides this, we have a Fastpass for Tower of Terror which also became an integral part of our family reunion and will visit a few shows like Fantasmic, Beauty and the Beast and Frozen. Apart from that we will also enjoy some of the street entertainment. For the rest DHS will be our half day park and help us spend some more time at the hotel and enjoy everything that is on offer there.

Animal Kingdom

As a family we love Animal Kingdom. And with the new Pandora rides, we plan on spending some good time at this park. Apart from all the extra entertainment which is offered there we have a whole bunch of Fastpasses that will allow us to experience Flight of Passage and Na’vi River. We will definitely go back at night to see how Pandora – A World of Avatar lights up.

While we have done it before, we will do Kilimanjaro Safaris twice and see Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo The Musical. For Rivers of Lights we will do standby as we have seen it in 2017 and aren’t big enough fans to get a Fastpass for it.

We will top it all off with a Meet and Greet with Disney Pals. As we haven’t been there yet, we are curious to see it.

Food wise we have made reservations at Yak ‘n Yeti but we are not sure yet whether we want to eat there. So for now, we will just wing it and might end up at Pandora a few times to try the food there.

Disney Springs

While it is sad that all parks close at 9pm each day, it also gives us some time to enjoy Disney Springs at night, and during the day when we visit DHS. Too many things have changes at Disney Springs, so it is hard to look forward to something specifically. We will for sure enjoy all the street entertainment and have a coffee at the Starbucks next to Characters in Flight.

Hotels

We will have our fair share of hotels this trip. We will stay at:

• Hilton Orlando Buena Vista Palace
• Disney’s Vero Beach Resort
• Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
• Disney’s Pop Century Resort
• Disney’s Port Orleans Resort – French Quarter

Some of our family members will stay half way at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas – Kidani Village.

So yes, we have a lot of hotel hopping to do. The Hilton will be our first hotel at Disney Springs which is exciting by itself, but we will only stay there one night. Disney’s Vero Beach Resort will be two nights, just before our Disney Cruise.

When we return to Walt Disney World Resort, we will stay at Copper Creek as we are DVC members. As Copper Creek is quite expensive, we will later on move to Pop Century and as that resort isn’t available the entire time, we will move to Port Orleans – French Quarter for the last few nights.

It seems like this is a huge mess when it comes down to hotels, but this was the best we could do price wise. Even with switching hotels, we are saving some money.

We are excited to stay at Copper Creek as it is a newly renovated resort, and all the photos and videos online just make it look amazing. The scenery will make it a really nice stay, and can’t wait to walk around and soak it all in. We will also plan on eating either at The Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue or Whispering Canyon Cafe.

Disney’s Boardwalk – Bon Voyage Adventure Breakfast

One extra thing that we already booked is the Bon Voyage Adventure Breakfast. Also here we have read some great things about it. When we stay at the Hilton, we will go there in the morning to enjoy a great breakfast with characters before we head out to Disney’s Vero Beach Resort.

Disney’s Character Warehouse

This has been on our list now for a while but somehow we have never managed to get to one. But this time we will go to a Disney’s Character Warehouse. Most likely we will go for the Vineland one. A Disney’s Character Warehouse is an outlet for Disney merchandise. And based on some of the videos we watched, you can find some great merchandise here for lower prices. Hopefully we have enough room in our suitcases!

Any Suggestions

When you made it this far, do you have any suggestions of things we might want to add? Anything that we missed, or things that you would definitely skip. Let us know in the comments.

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