At the end of October 2021, I had my 4th visit to Walt Disney World. It was amazing to be able to go so many times in one year! For this trip, I went with extended family (my aunt, one of her sons, part of his family, and his wife’s best friend). We were a party of six so we ended up staying in an All Star Music family suite for part of the week and then in a Treehouse Villa at Saratoga Springs resort for the last couple of nights. Where we stayed was not a favorite moment for once, so I thought I’d mention where we stayed before I talk about my favorite moments.

Favorite Moment #1
This might be cheating a little bit here, but my first favorite moment is the fact that with this being my 4th trip to Disney World in 2021, I felt like I could just be very chill and not do much in the parks if I didn’t want to. My knee was really hurting during this trip so it was very helpful to be able to just find a nice people-watching spot and wait for everyone else to go to attractions or go shopping if I wanted to do so. But also, I loved that I didn’t feel rushed to do things and I could just take in the atmosphere (and snacks).

Favorite Moment #2
Maybe I’m just a sucker overall for the nighttime shows at Disney World, by my next favorite moment was watching Harmonious at EPCOT. I left the park early that day so that I could rest my knee because it was important to me to be able to be able to go back and watch this nighttime show. I know so many people have complained about this show but I LOVED it! For some reason, some of the songs made me think of my dad who passed away in 2019 and I was teary eyed for a few minutes.

Favorite Moment #2.5
Ok, this is kind of an extension of the last moment so I made it #2.5. I loved seeing the monorails with the glowing lights under them at EPCOT as well as the Beacons of Magic on Spacehship Earth! I love me some Spaceship Earth anyway, but the moving lights they added to it for the 50th Anniversary celebration were amazing! If I hadn’t been so tired by the time I left EPCOT, I would have sat down and just watched the monorails go by Spaceship Earth until the park closed.

Favorite Moment #3
My next two favorite moments of this trip happened on our last park day! The first was when a rhinoceros blocked out path on the Kilimanjaro Safari in Animal Kingdom park. I’ve had giraffes or zebras or even an ostrich walk across our path before when we’ve done the safari, but during this trip a rhino was standing in our path for a little while and caused our guide/truck driver to have to call someone to come assist with getting it off of the road. It was only a 10-15 minute delay, but it was fun and cute because the rhino was in a spot where it would just peek out and then hid its head from us as we waited for it to move.

Favorite Moment #4
And finally, my last favorite memory from my October 2021 trip is getting evacuated from Expedition Everest! I’m a Disney World geek who likes to see behind the scenes a little bit in the parks, so when Expedition Everest broke down mid-ride and we had to be evacuated, I was kind of excited about it. I felt bad that my cousin and his family didn’t get to fully experience the ride, but this was my second ride evacuation and I thought it was kind of great! We had to go down 17 flights of stairs from where the coaster stopped and I was worried about hurting my knee even more, but overall it was worth it and will likely be a highlight of my trips for years to come.

I went into detail about the evacuation in a video which you can see here:

I’m so grateful that I was even able to visit Disney World so many times in one year and for me, even with all of the changes and price increases, I still find joy in visiting. I guess I’ll see what the future brings, but for now I’m looking forward to visiting twice this year! Spoiler alert…one of my planned trips is actually going to have my sons and I visiting Universal Studios and maybe not going to a Disney World park at all. Weird, right? 😉 °O°