We decided to do a long weekend in Disney this May. From Thursday to a Sunday, we were able to hit the Magic Kingdom and Epic Universe while also enjoying the resort.
The resort: Margaritaville in Kissimmee. Our condo on the resort was great – 4 beds 2 both and just overall so comfortable. Location-wise the condo was far from the pool area, but a simple shuttle call would make the trip easy. The food was ok, but the pool was large and there was a kids area as well. The resort offered a shuttle to the park, however, would not recommend. We were first to get on an it made a huge circle to pick up guests at other hotels, and we passed our place before heading to the park – so we rode the bus at least 30 min before actually heading to the park. Uber was our choice for the rest of the trip and honestly, it was very convenient – it left you right where you needed to be to head onto the monorails.
Magic Kingdom: Our plan of attack was the left side of the park in the morning, go back to resort to cool off/nap/eat, then head back to the park at night for the right side of the park and the fireworks show. Our plan worked out great – kids don’t really do anything too scary yet so lots of those rides with the long lines we were able to skip. Most of the rides we did go on were about 25-35 min, so nothing too outrageous.
Epic Universe: This trip we did all at once, no going back to the resort. It is smaller than Magic Kingdom, so it was doable with the kids. We started with Mario World and really, the visuals were stunning. Actually, all the worlds were visually fabulous. The Yoshi ride was up first with a 35 min wait …Do not recommend unless you have small kids…very slow and is basically just a tour around the world. The Bowser ride had a min 2 hour wait the entire day, so we didn’t even entertain it. Same for the Harry Potter ride. Harry Potter world was beautiful – you felt like you stepped into France of long ago. Butter beer, wands and magic store windows were all very cool to take in. We did go on a couple of rides in How to Train Your Dragon world that were fun and there was one big coaster that was ridden a few times, Stardust Racer. That was a fun one, and the line was never over 10 minutes.
Overall, for us doing these 2 parks in the short amount of time was just right, with the kids understanding that we weren’t going to wait on super long lines and not being upset about it. We got to see and do all the things we wanted, did not rush or push ourselves in the heat more than we wanted, and just had fun!
Tips
- Review the park map and rides before getting there (I planned out a route like a week or 2 out)
- Have the apps downloaded on our phones (they had the live wait times)
- Uber was a great way to get there with no car rental – no parking fees, faster than hotel shuttles, and drops/picks up right at the monorail station
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