Steve (DOS) and I just got back from a five day stay-cation to Walt Disney World (WDW). While we only live 45 minutes away from WDW, it’s nice to actually stay down there at one of the nearby hotels. We just renewed our Disney Annual passes, which we used to have every year, but haven’t had since pre-COVID. We bought the Florida Resident “Pixie Pass”, which is good for Monday thru Friday, with a few blackout days around the busy summer months and holidays. As DOS and I are both retired, it’s a good fit for us as the parks are less busy during the week, and we don’t have any desire to go on the busier weekends and holidays.
We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, one of our favorite Hyatt hotels, which is located literally adjacent to Disney Springs, although it feels very private as it’s built among several hundred acres of tree-lined and a meticulously landscaped property, with a gate-guarded entrance. We had a nice 2 room/2 Bath suite on the seventh floor, with an outstanding view of the pool and on-property lake, and as we had a corner room, it also overlooked EPCOT in the distance to the left, and Magic Kingdom’s Contemporary Resort, some 6 miles in the distance. From our balcony, we could see the fireworks at 9pm at EPCOT and 10pm from the Magic Kingdom.
We had a quite busy 5 night stay at the Hyatt. While we took my transit wheelchair along, I was able to walk for several thousand steps a day, which really has been a huge record for for the last few months with my knee pain from arthritis. As our room was ready by noon on our check-in day, we got checked in, and assisted by our favorite bellman Tim, who welcomed us back, and later even posed with me as his “baby”; i.e. the hotel’s macaw mascot “Merlot”. Merlot is 26 years old now, and Tim has known (and cared) for Merlot since he was 6 months old!
After getting settled into our hotel, DOS and I then went over to EPCOT (via Uber) and stayed thru the firework show at 9pm. The Food and Wine Festival was going on, and it was nice going there during the week, as we always went on the busy weekends when I was working. I will say for pluses and minuses: Plus for the quality of food. Minus for the prices, which like everything at Disney has gone up, up, up. Also Minus, they didn’t have a good selection of wines this year; it tended to be maybe one wine per pavilion (as opposed to several) and either a hard cider, and/or alcohol drink such as a Cosmo or similar at most pavilions. We managed to make a light meal out of several of the pavilion tents, before heading to Italy and having a charcuterie cheese and meat platter at the wine bar there, and later dinner as well. It was nice to sit indoors in the cool wine-like cave.
The firework show at 9pm was different than the one from a couple years ago, and while it was good and probably had more fireworks, I had gotten so use to the previous show with music, the big world globe ball etc, it found the new show a bit disappointing. The older show had been going for over 20 year (it debuted for the Millennium) so like a good theme park ride, I really miss it. Maybe in a couple years I’ll get used to the new show! As I took quite a few photos, I’m attaching these as a gallery for each of the parks we visited. Here is the gallery for EPCOT.
The next day (Thursday) we went to Magic Kingdom. While we didn’t ride any of the thrill rides like Space Mountain or the new Tron ride, we did pass them by and took a few photos. We enjoyed the old classic rides such as WED Way People-mover, and Carousel of Progress. We had a late lunch at Magic Kingdom at Rays Cosmic Cafe, and even at 3pm we had a hard time finding a seat. We both said next time we got to Magic Kingdom we will make reservations for a sit down, full service restaurant.
On Friday, we went to Hollywood Studios. Of all the parks, this was the biggest disappointment to us as Disney had changed so many attractions there over the years. While they still had Tower of Terror (which we didn’t ride), once popular attractions such as the Great Movie Ride, and the original Backlot Tour are gone, and it’s no longer a working movie studio. I know the Backlot Tour has been gone for years, replaced with a race car show, and I believe that is being replaced now too. The Great Movie Ride, and the landmark “Blue Hat” were fixtures for years and were replaced quite a while back unfortunately.
We did get to see Beauty and the Beast, which fortunately is still a live Broadway-type mini-musical of 20 minutes long, that is still there in the large outdoor 1500 seat amphitheater. The show is 100 percent as we remember it, so I’m glad that didn’t change. We had second row seats, so had a really close up view too!
After the show, we walked around Hollywood Studios for awhile before taking the new Skytram over towards the Caribbean Beach Resort transferring to the new Rivera Resort. The Rivera Resort is a new Disney Vacation Club (DVC) property that is a high rise tower, and is supposedly themed as a Mediterranean Resort.
Quite honestly we didn’t see much of any Mediterranean theming and although it was a nicely landscaped resort, it really just looked like any other high rise chain hotel. While it’s primarily for Disney Vacation Club guests, rooms can sometimes be rented out if DVC members don’t redeem their points for it. We’ve watched some YouTube Videos on the Rivera Beach Club, and they charge several hundred dollars a night (up to $900 in high season) for a studio room with a Murphy bed! Other rooms such as 1 bedroom or more are even higher. I really don’t see the value in this property at all, and was really surprised they only have one sit down restaurant for dinner, and a grab and go station or small dining room area with ordering from the counter or your phone app.
We did see Chip and Dale visit the resort while we were waiting out front for an Uber back to our hotel, and said hi to them in our best chipmunk voices!
The Rivera Resort’s location is very good; located next to the recently reconfigured Caribbean Beach Resort, which along with it, Pop Century and Art of Animation all are reached via the Sky Tram. A series of Sky Trams connects guests from these resorts to Hollywood Studios as well as the back entrance to EPCOT (near France).
On the weekend we went to Disney Springs as our new “Pixie” Annual Passes are only good Monday thru Friday. It was actually nice having a bit of a break after 3 days touring the theme parks! We headed to nearby Disney Springs via Uber from our Hyatt Regency Hotel in the late afternoon and went to Splitsville one night, the happiest bowling alley entertainment complex in the “World”, and to Wine Bar George on another night.
Splitsville is always a fun place to go, even if you don’t bowl, and as it’s so large (and most people don’t think of going to a bowling alley for dinner) you can usually get a reservation on even the busiest of times. The food is actually very good and ranges from exotic such as sushi to burgers, pizza and the like. The restaurant is on two levels and you sit in a separate section from the many different and colorful bowling lanes, but it’s fun to walk by them and watch for a bit. There is also a couple large sports bars with large screen TV’s to keep up with your favorite game. Splitsville is located in the former mega Virgin Record Store, and is just up the walkway from House of Blues (HOB) and the Circus del Soleil “tent” building.
Note if taking Uber to Disney Springs, Splitsville, HOB, and Circus del Soleil are located on the “West End Entrance”, while most of the other restaurants and attractions are located on the “Market-side Entrance”. You can get to either side of the huge Disney Springs area by foot, but if you want to save some steps and are only going to a specific area, enter West End Disney Springs or Market-side Disney Springs to save time, as we found out. The Market-side of Disney Springs is also along the hotel row, with the original Hilton Buena Vista Palace and others, plus Saratoga Springs etc, and is the mega transportation hub to other parts of the Kingdom.
Another night we went to Wine Bar George at Disney Springs. Wine Bar George is on the Market-Side entrance (main) entrance of Disney Springs, and is a lively area with the huge Paddlefish Boat, Lego store with giant lego sculptures out front and a dragon in the water, the Disney stores including a large Christmas one, and many other restaurants, bars, outdoor entertainment and shops.
Wine Bar George is a mostly adults place obviously, although kids can visit with their parents, though the food (Charcuterie platters, whole fish, or family style skirt steak) doesn’t normally appeal to kids wanting a happy meal or kids platter. We love Wine Bar George as it features dozens if not hundreds of wines by the ounce, 3 ounce, glass, or bottle, and prices range from a few dollars for a small portion to literally thousands for a fancy bottle of Bordeaux or other.
The nice thing is you can try a small sample of even an expensive wine in an ounce or three to “get a taste” of it, or make your own wine flight, and/or even get a bottle if you like with a nice charcuteries meat and/or cheese platter. Wine Bar George is a nice place to relax without rushed service, and extremely knowledgeable servers both at the large wine bar downstairs, or smaller bar and restaurant seating upstairs. DOS and I tried a couple nice one and three ounce samples to start with, over the large charcuterie meat and cheese platter, and later got a reasonably priced, but very nice bottle of Spanish wine for under a $100 a bottle. I’m not real familiar with Spanish wines, but the server recommended it as one of her favorites after we explained our taste preferences, and she even let us try a complimentary sample first. It’s nice trying new things that you wouldn’t normally try, and Wine Bar George really hits the spot in this regard!
Finally on our last day at Disney, (Monday), we didn’t return to the parks, but did enjoy the Hyatt property, and went to the Disney Boardwalk late in the afternoon for dinner. We had reservations at the Italian Restaurant there (next to the Flying Fish Cafe) and really enjoyed it as always.
After dinner we walked around the Boardwalk a bit, and were a bit sad to see the Boardwalk Brewing Company had closed down, which had been there for years. The space was empty, so hopefully another restaurant or bar will lease that prime space on the Boardwalk area. Also ESPN sports bar and restaurant had closed down as well, and it’s being remodeled into a large cake shop and bakery cafe. It’s boarded up right now, so don’t know when it’s scheduled to re-open.
We finished up the evening at the Dolphin Hotel which is actually a Starwood hotel located on the Boardwalk. We’ve stayed there many times, and it’s super convenient to EPCOT. I always loved the grand lobby there, and we had a nightcap at the lobby bar there before Ubering back to our Hyatt Grand Cypress Hotel.
So I’m going to finish this post now, so I can write a quick post before heading to bed for my ICD procedure in the morning. We had a wonderful time at Disney and are looking forward to going back again in mid-October, actually just a couple weeks from now!