In late June, the fam and I hit the road to Orlando to enjoy a week at Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando. Our plan was two nights at Disney’s Boardwalk resort, two nights at Disney’s Polynesian Village resort, and two nights at Helios Grand at Universal. Adding those three hotels to the hotel for the drive to Florida and the hotel for the drive back home to Virginia, five hotels in a week was A LOT. We’re experts at switching hotels and keeping things moving though, so we managed the transitions with relative ease. It’s funny though, our challenge became finding laundry facilities at the different stops to keep our clothes clean and fresh. Florida in June is no joke when it comes to heat and humidity and, as a result of those two fun things, sweat. Lots of sweat. We also had pool time and went to Volcano Bay at Universal, so wet bathing suits needed attention as well. I’m happy to report that we succeeded in finding laundry rooms at each spot and did the needful. Adulting is hard!
The hotels… all three were exactly what we needed for that portion of the trip! Boardwalk was the perfect location to start our trip, since our first Disney day was at Epcot and the second was at Hollywood Studios. Both of these are right near Boardwalk, with Epcot being a super short walk to the park and Hollywood Studios being a quick boat ride over. Our third Disney day was Animal Kingdom, then the move to the Polynesian Village resort, and the evening at Magic Kingdom. The last Disney day was spent oh so happily in the pool at the Polynesian and exploring the resort.
We stayed in the new Island Tower at the Polynesian resort, which is to the far left of the resort and very close to the Wedding Pavilion and the Grand Floridian resort. This resort was built in the area that the Spirit of Aloha luau show used to occupy. We’ve stayed at the Polynesian several times but staying in the Tower was **chef’s kiss**. LOVED the room, the Tower, the vibe of the building and the area, and the new Cove pool beside the tower. The original Polynesian resort features rooms in several longhouses but the tower has all of the rooms in the one big, you guessed it, tower. You can’t access any of the rooms or floors of the tower without staying there, which is HUGE for guests. There are four incredible terraces (two on the front and two on the back) that are large open air spaces for guests to relax and enjoy spectacular views. The two on the front of the tower face Magic Kingdom and the Seven Seas Lagoon area and the two on the back face — well construction right now. They face Disney’s Palm golf course and some road construction. The highlight is that you can also see the monorail track and watch those go by quite frequently. Terrace pics are below. Definitely a highlight of staying in the tower!
Boardwalk is always so fun and being that close to Epcot is an absolute treat for us since we tend to spent a decent amount of time there. The headboard of the Murphy bed had Max and Goofy, our favorite father/son duo! Our room had a boardwalk view so we were able to sit out and watch the fireworks from Luminous at Epcot one evening. It was the first time we had a boardwalk view there (we have been there many times but with other views from our room) and it was neat to watch all the folks enjoying the boardwalk activities at night. There are street performers, surrey bikes for rent, carnival games, musical acts, etc. and lots of guests come over to experience something a little different on their trips. Epcot was fantabulous as always and dinner at Via Napoli was as delicious as we come to expect. We hit all of our favorite rides and attractions plus grabbed dessert to go from Karamell Kuche in Germany (oh that caramel…) before heading back for the evening.
Hollywood Studios always means Star Wars fun for us but we also wanted to see the updated Little Mermaid musical show and the new Villains show. I have to say that the Little Mermaid show has always been a fave of mine but it is so well done now… majorly impressed with the updates. I wasn’t sure what to expect on the Villains show and ended up enjoying it quite a bit. The storyline isn’t the strongest but the effects and stars of the show did a great job. I’m excited to see how it evolves. We also stopped by the Frozen Sing Along show and the Arendelle historians were super funny, more funny than usual I think. Lots of laughs from us for sure! Dinner was at Hollywood & Vine with Minnie and friends and quite yummy. They were offering a discount for annual passholders that we had to take advantage of, us an seemingly everyone else in there! I heard all of the other tables around us saying they were AP holders as well. Too much savings to resist for us I guess!
We didn’t spent a ton of time in Animal Kingdom but had a great spot to watch Festival of the Lion King and a blast on Flight of Passage. We split up for lunch with the fam having Satu’li Canteen and me heading over for some classic American goodness at Pizzafari. It was nice to take a walk around the park and see some old faves since we don’t typically spend a lot of time there. Animal Kingdom is a beautiful place to spend the day! Our room was ready over at the Polynesian, so we left the park and got set up in our new room. The hubs had a concert at House of Blues at Disney Springs to attend, so the daughter and I headed out to Magic Kingdom for dinner and a little more fun. Crystal Palace hit the spot with their delish buffet plus Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore. We took one last ride on the Rivers of America on the Liberty Belle Riverboat (it closed permanently on July 7th) and hopped on Haunted Mansion (our fave ride!) for a journey through the darkness. It was almost time for Happily Ever After fireworks after that and the mob scene had plugged up all of the Castle hub area, the side bridges, and all the way down Main Street USA, so we hopped on the boat back to our resort. While onboard, the fireworks started and we were able to watch them (with the music piped in while we were parked at the Grand Floridian resort boat dock) from the water. What a lovely way to end the night!
The next day was our pool day. No parks, just chlorine and sunscreen. The new Cove pool beside the Island Tower was a great way to relax and refresh. Pretty basic pool but with a cute little Moana themed waterplay area for the littles. We got a lunch snack from the Wailulu Bar and Grill at the tower and then ordered in dinner from Giordano’s pizza delivery. I LOVE Giordano’s and try to get it on most of our trips. Always so good! We ended the night with drinks from the main pool bar and our tower terrace exploration.
It was moving time again the next morning so we packed up and headed to Helios Grand to check in. The room wasn’t ready so we hopped on a bus to Volcano Bay for some waterpark fun. The wave pool occupied a good bit of the day before we switched to the lazy river and then the pool. Unfortunately, the Fearless river was closed when we made our way around to it but there was a vicious thunderstorm on the way anyway, so we ended up leaving the park shortly thereafter. Back to Helios, the rain was going crazy and we got soaked trying to get our bags from our van to the hotel. Since we were still in our bathing suits, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been if we were fully dressed.
Dinner that night was at Flora Taverna, a restaurant in Helios. This restaurant was SO good. I’ve been kind of meh about food in Orlando in general lately but Flora Taverna turned that right around! The service and the food was incredible, so much so that we had breakfast there the morning we left to go home. Expensive but worth every penny!
Helios was such a cool hotel! It even had a tablet in the room that you could control the curtains and lights with! Tablets are becoming more the norm for room service, looking at room charges, etc. but this one controlled the tv, the lights and lamps in all the rooms, the curtains, and you could even make requests for more amenities with it!
Helios is located right at the rear of Epic Universe park and has its own private guest entrance into the park near Dark Universe. For us, that was perfection! Resort guests also get an hour early entry so we headed into the park and spent time in Dark Universe before heading to Super Mario World before the crowds. It was neat to see the park again so soon after our last visit and to see how many things had changed. There were new food stands, new merch, other stores that hadn’t opened yet, better processes for getting on attractions (no more virtual queue for Battle of the Ministry in Harry Potter!), and more. We spent a very full day in the park and ended with the fountain show at closing. Everything was perfect (except the huge thunderstorm but weather is what weather is) even though we didn’t get everything done that we were trying to. Lunch was at The Atlantic restaurant, another one that was new and incredibly good. Reservations required and worth the park time to enjoy the food there. It is hard to be a vegetarian when you don’t eat fake meat or mushrooms, dining options have just migrated to basically those two things as the vegetarian menu ‘option’ but The Atlantic had the most amazing romanesco dish… still thinking about that thing. Back to Epic though, I think the best there is two days but at least a day and a half. It is so hard to try to cram everything into one day. We go back again this fall but will have Express Passes this time, hopefully helping us get a little done for our day at Epic.
The drive back home was definitely interesting for us. So much traffic on I-95, which isn’t unusual but never welcome, and then the hubs got hit with apparently food poisoning so I ended up driving the last five hours or so home the next day. At least we take backroads and more local routes for that portion! Next time, we’re flying to Orlando so they won’t be subjected to my driving and musical accompaniment!
xoxo, Amber
Type A Travel Mom 