Disney World 2016 (What We Did & What We Ate)

 

Time to recap our trip to Disney World!

It was our fifth time down to Orlando in the last seven years during Christmas Break. I guess you can say that going to Disney this time of year is our thing!

Where We Stayed:

We stayed at our favorite hotel in Disney World, the Hilton Bonnet Creek Resort. The Hilton Bonnet Creek is not a Disney hotel but is on Disney property which means its super close to all of the theme parks. The hotel provides free transportation to all of the theme parks just like the Disney hotels do.

It’s such a beautiful property!

It’s really special to always return to the same hotel because we know where everything is and really look forward to the food, the service, the gym and the pool, which has a lazy river and water slide. Since the Hilton and Waldorf are basically sister hotels on this property, you can easily walk through the hotel to the Waldorf side for the Guerlain spa which I have done in the past for a great massage. 🙂

What We Did:

Since we do come down to Disney World fairly often, we do not try to see everything during our trip which makes life in Disney World a whole lot more relaxed.

We were in Disney for four days and three nights which I find to be more than enough!

I chose a three-day park pass with intentions of going to Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom (we didn’t do Animal Kingdom in 2014 which is why we chose it for this trip over Epcot).

While I debated the park hopper option which allows you to bounce between any of the parks on any day, I chose against it because I just didn’t think we would need it for this trip.

I am super glad that I made this decision as we definitely wouldn’t have made it to multiple parks every day if we had the park hopper pass as things did not totally go as planned for us during this trip which I will get to in a minute!

The first theme park of our trip was Hollywood Studios, the day we arrived in Orlando.

The weather was BEAUTIFUL and perfect the entire trip but felt especially nice when we first got there, that’s for sure.

We saw the Stars Wars fireworks show and I survived the Aerosmith rollercoaster at night too which I swear feels faster and worse with every year that I age.

It was after breakfast Friday morning, as we headed to Magic Kingdom, that my son couldn’t decide if he didn’t feel well.

All morning at Magic Kingdom he just felt overly full from breakfast and kept saying maybe he ate too much, maybe he was tired, maybe he would never eat eggs or bacon again.

We decided to leave Magic Kingdom early to head back to the hotel to sit by the pool and then figured we would return to Magic Kingdom later in the day to finish up our fast passes and walking around.

Well, we never made it to the pool and never returned to Magic Kingdom on Friday.

My son GOT SICK ALL OVER ME on the shuttle bus ride back to our hotel (and then I caught his stomach bug when we got home but hey, at least I didn’t have it in Disney or for the plane ride back!).

Thankfully my motherly instincts kicked in which kept me from caring about myself and caring only about how he felt while assuring him that these things happen and he would be fine.

We spent the rest of the day/night at the hotel where I took all of our clothing to the concierge to be cleaned because no way was I traveling back to New York with our clothes covered in sick like that!

By Saturday morning, he felt better so we spent some time at the pool before making the decision to head back to Magic Kingdom to walk around. We originally planned fast passes for the day at Animal Kingdom but he wasn’t feel up for that.

It was totally fine by me because we had unfinished business at Magic Kingdom in the form of my favorite giant chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich.

The only menorah I found in Disney World happened to be at our hotel which they lit for the first night of Hanukkah right before we went to Disney Springs for a few hours to walk around at night.

What We Ate (The Highlights):

I love the elaborate breakfast buffet served every morning at the Hilton Bonnet Creek but I am a creature of habit and stick with oatmeal, peanut butter and fruit.

I always refill my oatmeal and take more fruit. One morning I even added eggs to my plate and tasted a few of the muffins too.

The first dessert of the trip was at Hollywood Studios basically as soon as we spotted the sweets shop!

You know how I love the chocolate covered apples.

I allowed them to slice it for me so that the chocolate covered apple would be easier to eat while walking around Hollywood Studios.

I also had this brownie covered in m&m’s < – no such thing as too chocolately!

We ate at the hotel a lot more than usual because my son had been sick.

Thankfully the food at the hotel is great! We had this pizza two times actually, it was so good.

This salad contained chick peas and candied nuts.

I had this spa salad twice by the pool which had grilled onions, edamame, egg, candied walnuts and feta cheese.

This chocolate chip cookie at the hotel was really good the night that my son was sick. I got it for myself while getting him bottles of water and dry cereal.

Actually, the only theme park restaurant we went to during the trip was the 50’s Prime Time Cafe in Hollywood Studios where we have dined in the past but probably won’t again.

It’s a bit pricey for what it is and they don’t really have many options for meatless eaters.

I had the vegetable lasagna. It was okay, fairly small yet expensive.

Although the point of the restaurant is to make you feel like you are in a 1950’s kitchen with the waitresses treating you like you are their children, we found it annoying after a while. Our waitress had my son stand in the corner for a really long time because he kept putting his hat back on his head. HA!

Even though this trip didn’t exactly go as planned with my son being sick for a bit, we still had a great time. The weather was a major highlight for us and I am already missing the mornings by the pool right after breakfast.

I also didn’t open my laptop the entire trip which was a really big deal. I had a much needed break from routine and technology!

While I used my phone from time to time to post to Instagram, I was definitely unplugged on this trip more than ever and would do it all over again.

Previous Disney Posts:

Disney Week Workouts

How We Do Disney (2014)

Merry Christmas From Disney 2014

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Favorite foods in Disney World/Disney Land?

Do you have a favorite Disney theme park?

Have you ever been sick on vacation?