A few weekends ago, Rachel and I headed down for another weekend at our favorite place on Earth. It had been almost 3 months since our last trip to Disney, which for us feels like forever. We were excited to spend a few days with our friends Nick and Ciara and stay on property for a couple of those nights.
We made it down to Orlando on Thursday night around 7pm and headed over to Disney Springs for dinner and a little shopping. They have opened several new stores since May. Disney Springs, in my opinion, has become a must stop on every trip.
New Anthropologie Store. Rachel was excited!
After Disney Springs, we headed over to Nick and Ciara’s house, where we spent the night. We are so grateful to have friends who offer a place for us to stay. You can’t beat free!
Friday, we decided to start our day by visiting several Disney resorts. One of the things we have really enjoyed the past few trips is exploring all of the resorts Disney has to offer. We made it over to the Animal Kingdom Lodge first. This resort is amazing! From seeing animals such as giraffes to one of the best themed lobbies I’ve seen on property. We loved it!
Next, we headed over to the Boardwalk Beach Resort. Rachel and I have run around the boardwalk a few times during the RunDisney races, but wanted to have some more time to explore.
One of the neat things about this resort is there are 3 resorts all right next to each other. We explored the Boardwalk, Beach Club and Yacht Club. All three of these resorts were amazing. We even ate some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had at Ample Hills Creamery. 2 thumbs up!
After walking around for several hours, we made our way over to the Caribbean Beach Resort, where we would be staying for the rest of the weekend. We visited this resort back in January, so we knew we wanted to stay here at least once.
We checked in, rested for a little bit, then made our way over to Epcot for the rest of the afternoon/evening. Since our last trip in May, Epcot has opened 2 new rides…Soarin’ Over the World and Frozen Ever After. We were able to ride both of these new rides and I was very pleased with both, especially Frozen. While Frozen isn’t necessarily my favorite movie, they did a great job with the ride and theming. I was definitely pleasantly surprised!
Finally, we met up with Ciara and Nick for dinner at Via Napoli in the Italy pavilion, which is one of my favorite places to eat at Disney. It was excellent! After dinner, we made our way back over to the resort and walked around for a little while, before calling it a day. All in all, it was a great first part of the trip!
Whittaker's Wondrous World 
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