A couple of weeks ago, I had the shortest Disney World resort stay that I’ve ever had in more than 35 years of going to Disney World. I mean, I live in Texas, so there has never really been any reason for me to have a short visit like this before. I mentioned in my post about planning this trip how it was pretty stress-free for a last minute trip, and I have to admit, although I’m not a fan of that drive from my home in Texas to Walt Disney World, this was one of my favorite visits ever!

If you didn’t read my previous regular post (not the Cheat Day post), I mentioned that I invited my mom to drive with me since she likes road trips and I wanted her to get out of the house for a few days. Also, I drove for this short trip because I am not officially able to fly until mid June because of the rib I broke in March.

We left on a Monday morning and drove about halfway there on the first day. There’s really nothing exciting about the road trip to relay here, except that about 2 hours into the journey, I realized that I forgot to pack my MagicBand. #rookiemistake

This really isn’t that big of a deal since I had my annual pass card with me which gets me into the parks, and I can use the My Disney Experience app to open my Disney World resort hotel door (although it’s not my favorite thing to do and I’ve had an issue using the app to open my door in the past). It was more of an inconvenience since I knew that driving into Fort Wilderness, I probably wasn’t going to be able to use the app or my annual pass to get into the returning guest gate. I did online check-in so once they sent me the cabin number, I could have just used my MagicBand to get through that gate instead of having to go to the actual check-in line. But once we arrived on Tuesday evening, the Cast Member at the check-in line was able to give me a card that opened my cabin door and worked at the return gate of the resort.

I had actually considered going to Disney Springs that evening after we arrived or doing something other than sitting in the cabin, but I decided that I didn’t want to risk being sore or somehow re-hurting myself that evening and it being an issue for the next day, which was my ride preview day for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. It started to rain just about the time we’d arrived. It made for a nice relaxing evening at the Cabins at Fort Wilderness.

I wish I could say I slept in on Wednesday morning, but I just don’t sleep very well anyway and I woke up pretty early. My preview time wasn’t until 2:00 that day so I decided I was just going to casually get ready and have a late breakfast with my mom before I headed to EPCOT. I made a quick trip to Walmart and got a handful of things for us to eat in the cabin and sat and talked with my mom while we had breakfast. It was nice to not be in a hurry. In fact, I ended up not leaving to head to EPCOT until a little after noon.

Once I arrived at EPCOT, I ended up finding a shady place to sit near Spaceship Earth and I just did some people watching and chatted with a security officer for a few minutes who happened to have lived in Texas for a while. After that, I checked attraction wait times in the My Disney Experience/Genie app and decided to get in line for Spaceship Earth. It’s definitely one of my favorites! The standby queue was only about a 15 minute wait. Once I was done there, I was planning on going over to The Land pavilion for Soarin’ and Living With the Land since they were both less than 20 minute waits, but since my preview was from 2:00- 2:30, I knew I would only be able to ride one of the attractions before I had to head over to Guardians of the Galaxy.

Instead, I went to Gateway Gifts and then to Pin Traders Camera Center near Spaceship Earth to check out what merchandise they had. Once I was done there, I headed over near Guardians and found another seat in the shade to wait the 10 minutes I had left until my time slot. Then it was time to get in line for the preview!

I had read that other people who did the preview in the days before me had a wait of around an hour to ride Cosmic Rewind during their time slots, so I anticipated a similar wait which I was going to utilize to get some pictures and video of the queue. However, even with all of the people in line before me, the line moved really quickly. It’s a long queue with a cool theme and a lot to see and listen to, but it went by so fast since the line was moving right along. I nearly walked right up to the pre-show area. I’m not going into any details about the ride here, but I will say that it was really awesome for me! I didn’t get motion sick on this at all and I thought it was so good! I can’t wait to ride it again!

Once I finished with the ride preview, I checked wait times in the app again and decided to head on over to The Land pavilion. The standby queue for Soarin’ was 15 minutes so I went for that first. The park really wasn’t that busy but considering it was after 2:00 already, I figured people park hopped, but I also figured the wait times would be going up soon from the people hopping into EPCOT. Soarin’ was nearly a walk on too. Living With the Land was an even shorter wait so, of course, I got on that.

I was having such a nice time, I decided to sit on a bench in The Land pavilion and just take in the chill atmosphere (in the air conditioned comfort). After about 10 minutes of that, I got up and headed out to go ride Journey Into Imagination With Figment. I saw Winnie the Pooh on the way there. He was pretty cute with the dancing and butterfly hunting. Is that what it’s called? Butterfly hunting? Well, you know what I mean.

By the time I was done with the Figment ride, I headed towards the shops near the beginning of World Showcase for some light shopping. By this time, I had only been in EPCOT for about three and a half hours. My knee that had given me trouble the last few trips was not hurting at all and I had no pain in my ribs or back. But for some reason, the nerve pain I get in one leg was starting to bother me. I bought a Dole Whip with Fanta (only because my favorite chocolate and vanilla swirl waffle cone was replaced at Refreshment Port with a Blueberry and Lemonade swirl and I’m not a fan), then I sat at on a bench in the hot sun to mostly enjoy my snack.

From here, I decided to skip walking around World Showcase and just head back to the cabin. I took my time making my way back to the car and I decided to get some food off Disney property to take back for dinner with my mom. I just stayed in the cabin the rest of the evening and we got up early on Thursday morning to start the road trip back home.

It was such a whirlwind of a trip but I ended up having a great time and I’m happy that I decided to do this. I doubt that I will make many short two night stays at Disney World like this again, but I wouldn’t mind doing this every once in a while under the right circumstances. °O°