The family has been saving up to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Walt Disney World in Florida this spring, and I figured what better way to enjoy the time (aside from all the awesome rides and attractions) than by finding a couple geocaches?
Knowing that there are four parks (Magic Kingdom Park, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom Theme Park, and Disney's Hollywood Studios) to visit, we planned our visit for six days. This allowed us to visit each park once with a day at the end to revisit our favorite one, and one day at the beginning to adjust to the time change and recover from a full day of flying from Montana to Florida.
Disney's Magic Kingdom Park, with Walt, Mickey, and Sleeping Beauty's Castle
We chose to stay at Shades of Green, a wonderful Disney resort that is designed specifically for service members and their families and happens to be centrally located between all of the different parks.
After our first day of recovery and discovering the grounds of the resort were full of wild turkeys, alligators (none seen), and tiny little "push-up" lizards, we also came to realize that rainstorms in the South are very different than they are in the northern Rocky Mountains. One minute the outside temperature will be hot and humid and the next there will be a torrential downpour, only to clear out and become sunny again within minutes. Fortunately, we only had to deal with this crazy weather while we were at the resort.
02 May 2022
Day one of our park’s adventure was at the Magic Kingdom. Of course, we tried to make it to as many rides and attractions as possible, and with the girls being a range of ages and heights, we had to be a bit strategic. After a long day in the park, we were able to claim riding about 90% of all the rides (some were down for maintenance and a few others were ones no one wanted to ride) and one Virtual geocache, GC10FB Magic Kingdom, and headed back to the resort for some much-needed food and rest.
03 May 2022
The second day of our trip, we headed to the Animal Kingdom Park. This was the park MommaMonster had been looking forward to the most, and it proved to be just as awesome as expected. All of us really enjoyed seeing the animals, especially on the Kilimanjaro Safari, open-air guided tour of lush African savannah, where animals are able to roam free. After a short ride upon the Wildlife Express Train, we disembarked at the Conservation Station where we joined in on the Animation Experience and learned to draw Simba of the Lion King. Afterwards, we walked around the conservation-themed building and learned about Disney's conservation efforts, both in the park and around the world. We were also given a very special "behind-the-scenes" tour of the nutrition center and animal clinic. Here, we were given an up-close-and-personal look at some of the rarer animals housed at the facility but were temporarily out of the public viewing area for recovery, including skinks, geckos, and saw the green tree python and some poison dart frogs. It just went to show our girls that if you ask questions, most people, especially those employed to answer questions, will go out of their way to ensure you have a great visit. Along with some more rides and visiting a few more attractions, we gathered together at the Tree of Life to claim another Virtual cache, GC3334 Animal Kingdom before heading back to the Shades of Green.
Disney's Animal Kingdom and the Tree of Life
04 May 2022
The third day of our Disney trip took us to Disney's Hollywood Studios, home to the relatively new (2019) Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. This was, of course, the family favorite, and what better day to be here than May-the-Fourth, surrounded by hundreds of other Star Wars' fans?!? Here, we discovered full-size replicas of X-wing fighters, the Millenium Falcon, and a TIE Fighter, as well as cast members dressed as Imperial Stormtroopers, and hundreds of lightsaber wielding (wanna-be) jedi. While exploring Bantuu, I also got to enjoy authentic blue milk and explored the wonders of Dok-Ondar's Den of Antiquities and Black Spire Outfitters. I also traded some Republic credits for a pair of chance-dice that MommaMonster loves to torment the children with!
Geocaching on Bantuu at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge
In truth, I really enjoyed the entire Park, including the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, the Frozen sing-along celebration (in which it snowed INSIDE!), Grand Avenue, and Sunset Boulevard. Before the night got away from us, I managed to visit the Virtual cache GC338 Hollywood Studios for one more find.
05 May 2022
For our fourth day of our adventure at Walt Disney World we headed to EPCOT. Unfortunately, it was also the hottest day of the week, and we sweltered. The kids had the hardest time dealing with the heat, and if you have ever had to deal with kids who are hungry, bored (no great rides at EPCOT), and hot, you can begin to imagine the day we had. Fortunately, we did make it all the way around the World Showcase, and even got to experience World Nature, World Discovery, and The Seas (aquarium) before we all melted and decided to call it a day. Unexpectedly, I was able to find two Virtual caches at this park, GC3336 EPCOT, and GC9F98 That's Some Water, Eh?
Geocaching at EPCOT
06 May 2022
As planned, we had a full day to return to any of the parks to revisit things we really liked, or to see things we hadn't had the chance to on one of the other days. It turned out that we all voted to revisit Hollywood Studios, specifically Star Wars: Galaxy Edge, and the Animal Kingdom. We started at the Animal Kingdom and the girls enjoyed exploring the area again, this time with the goal on mind of becoming a Wilderness Explorer. Towards afternoon, we ventured over to Galaxy's Edge, which was much less crowded, allowing us to really enjoy immersing ourselves in the atmosphere of the Star Wars world.
07 May 2022
On our last day in Florida, we drove out to NASA's Kennedy Space Center where we were able to walk under Saturn V, the largest rocket ever flown, touch a real moon rock, snap a photo in front of the Atlantis orbiter shuttle, walk through the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, learned about the Mars Mission, as well as the upcoming Artimus Misson - NASA's newest project to send humans back to the moon.
It was a full day of learning and experiencing science and space; we all enjoyed it. And, while driving to and from the Space Center, we saw dozens and dozens of alligators partially submerged in the many channels surrounding the site.
NASA's Kennedy Space Center
All in all, we had a great trip to the "Happiest Place on Earth." We found 5 Virtual geocaches, explored all four Disney parks, and made memories to last a lifetime.