This week's post is a more personal one, as I just celebrated my Bachelorette at Disney World! It was extremely magical and a perfect weekend with my best friends in my favorite place on Earth. While some people may think it's strange to have your "last hoorah" at Disney World, it was everything I would've wanted and more and was the best spot for me. In this post I'll lay out how us girls took on Disney World and how you can make your Disney trip more "adult" to be fitting for a Bachelorette. I will also note that I absolutely was not the only bride celebrating my Bachelorette in Disney World on the weekend I was there, and it is in fact a popular spot to celebrate a purer Bachelorette than a banger in Vegas.
Day 1- EPCOT
EPCOT is the park at Disney World where you can most closely mimic the "stereotypical" Bachelorette. Our whole plan for this day was to work our way "around the world" trying drinks from each country and riding rides. It was the least structured and most laid back day that I have ever had in Disney World and I will say it was quite nice. This approach worked out for us because it was not very crowded in EPCOT on this day. That meant short lines for drinks, food, and rides.
We started out "drinking around the world" in Mexico, which we had been advised against doing. However, it was extremely hot out and the frozen margaritas were calling our names. Once arriving at the World Showcase, we ordered margaritas at Choza de Margarita, which is the margarita stand outside of the Mexico pavilion. These margaritas are strong but very yummy! They cost about $14 each and are definitively refreshing on a hot day! By the time we finished our margs, we were rethinking our decision to start in Mexico, noting that they were strong while riding the Three Caballeros ride in the pavilion.
Next, we visited Norway, which had an amazing drink that I could not pronounce and cannot remember the name of. It was berries and cream flavored with rum. It was seriously better than the Mexican margaritas. We sipped on these drinks while waiting to ride Frozen, which only had a 30 minute wait! For EPCOT fans, this is unheard of.
We continued making our way around the world, grabbing either a drink or a snack in the different countries we passed. Then, our virtual queue was called for Guardians of the Galaxy and we sped walked from France to World of Discovery. I had successfully booked Guardians at the 7am virtual queue time, while on the airplane sitting on the tarmac, 10 minutes before takeoff!
Guardians is the BEST ride in all of Disney World. It is 100% worth booking the virtual queue. We had so much fun and wished we could ride it again. Sadly, you can only book 1 virtual queue slot per day, so it was a one and done experience for us.
On par with our laid-back approach to the day, we had made no dining reservations for EPCOT. Instead, we had pizza in the Italy pavilion for dinner and boy was it delicious! We grabbed a slice at the pizza counter, and each slice was the size of at least 2 normal sized slices. It was very filling and you definitely don't need more than one slice per person.
Next, we headed to the France pavilion for dessert and tried some sweets from Les Halles Boulangerie Patisserie. This bakery offers many different savory and sweet baked goods. I sampled the eclair, and it was very good.
All in all, EPCOT was a great park to start my Bachelorette it. It had a more stereotypical Bachelorette feel to it, in that you could try lots of different drinks and just hang out with friends. It was a different vibe than I am used to on my Disney trips and was a nice change of pace that I may try to incorporate into future Disney trips. Even being laid back, we still got to ride all of the rides we wanted to in EPCOT.
At the end of the day, we headed to our resort. We chose to stay in one of the family suites at All-Star Music. We chose this resort because 1) we all wanted to stay in one room; 2) it was the most affordable suite on Disney property; and 3) it had the largest beds out of the value resort suites available. I will be posting a future blog post about the suite, but I personally thought it was great and would definitely stay in one again with a group.
Day 2- Magic Kingdom
For our Magic Kingdom day, me and all of my bridesmaids wore matching shirts, fanny packs, ears, and sunglasses. It was so fun because a lot of people noticed us and said congratulations. My veil ears were definitely noticeable in a crowd!
We decided to get Genie Plus for Magic Kingdom since there are so many rides in this park and we thought it would be very crowded on the day we were visiting. Our strategy was to book our first lightening lane for Peter Pan and we rope dropped Jungle Cruise. I was also able to book the 7am virtual queue slot for Tron. We were the first boat out on Jungle Cruise and followed with Pirates at practically a walk on. We kept commenting on how uncrowded the park was for the Saturday of a holiday weekend. It was very surprising, and we probably did not actually need Genie Plus after all since none of the waits got above 30 minutes throughout the entire day.
For breakfast, we got waffles from Sleepy Hollow. I had never tried them before but had heard they were very good, so this was my chance! They did not disappoint. There were a couple of different options, but I chose the mickey waffle topped with berries and whipped cream. It was fantastic and big! For $8.50, you got a good sized, delicious breakfast. A couple of the other girls got the chicken & mickey waffle and said that was very good too.
We took a break from the park at dinnertime and made our way over to Disney Springs for dinner. We ate at House of Blues, which was a great spot for a Bachelorette. There was live music, yummy cocktails, and affordable good food. We ended up staying at House of Blues longer than expected, sipping on cocktails, laughing, and enjoying the live music. This is where we added an "adult twist" to what a typical Magic Kingdom day would entail. It was a blast and one of my favorite parts of the whole Disney Bachelorette.
After dinner we made our way back to Magic Kingdom for the last 1 1/2 hours of park time. I had successfully booked the 1pm virtual queue slot for the new ride Tiana's Bayou Adventure. We learned that you are able to ride the ride anytime after your virtual queue group is called, which was good because ours was called while we were just heading to dinner. I will talk more about Tiana's Bayou Adventure in a different blog post, but to put it shortly- it was a disappointment. The one plus was that we were riding Tiana's during the fireworks show, and could see them going off over the castle from the ride. Very cool!
After riding Tiana's, which was a walk-on with the virtual queue, we sped walked to Space Mountain for our last ride of the day. We made it in time and had a blast riding the thrill ride. All in all, we were able to ride all of the rides we wanted to during our Magic Kingdom day.
Even though Magic Kingdom may be viewed as the more "childlike" park, it was my favorite day of the Bachelorette weekend. It was so fun walking around in our matching outfits, getting compliments and congratulations from cast members and other guests alike. We found ways to make it more "Bachelorette like" by leaving for dinner and drinks. It was truly magical to feel like we were all kids again, running around the happiest place on earth together. In a way, I knew my child self would have loved this back in the day, and we were finally doing it now. I definitely will remember it forever!
Day 3- Animal Kingdom
The last day of my Bachelorette weekend was in Animal Kingdom. We chose Animal Kingdom because 1) it is my 2nd favorite park behind Magic Kingdom; and 2) we were all flying home that night and it was the park that closed the earliest (6pm).
We started the morning by rope dropping Flight of Passage, which I've said before it necessary if you want to avoid a huge line during the rest of the day. Then, we rode every ride we wanted to, avoiding long lines for everything except Everest.
When getting to Everest, we saw that the wait time was 55 minutes. I normally do not wait that long for a ride, but it was the last ride we hadn't rode and we all really wanted to ride it. We decided to grab a frozen alcoholic drink at the stand outside the ride to sip on while waiting in line. It was a great idea because it cooled us down and really made the wait go by faster. It was also interesting to ride Everest slightly tipsy for the first and probably last time ...
We ended our Animal Kingdom Day at the Nomad Lounge, located right near the bridge entrance into Pandora. It seems like this outside bar is not well known, but it is a great spot and I highly recommend checking it out. They have a long list of fun cocktails, wine, beer, and a small snack menu. The seating is outside overlooking the river. There are comfy couches and big overhead fans. It is a very relaxing place and a good spot to hangout when looking to kill some time or rest while in Animal Kingdom. While there we grabbed some drinks and an order of churros. It really was the perfect ending to the day before heading home.
My Bachelorette trip to Disney World will be something I will remember forever. Me and my Bridesmaids had a blast and it was great to get away, just us girls. I am so happy we were able to do it!
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