Disney World 2023/Day 1/Travel Day and Contemporary Resort

We headed out to Disney World first thing in the morning on Saturday, February 18th. It was the very first day of Briana's winter break. I use the word "winter" mildly because we were heading down to Florida and it ended up being one of the hottest weeks in February in Orlando in decades. It felt more like summer than winter.

The drive was long that day and we hit a few traffic hiccups on the way, but the weather was good and we got there late in the afternoon. I had dinner reservations at our hotel that evening, so I was happy we got there with enough time to get settled and relax a bit before dinner.

Driving up to Contemporary Resort...

The lobby...

Our home away from home for 6 nights...

 The hotel theme is "The Incredibles"...

Bri's bed for our stay (the couch turned into a bed - she said it was quite comfortable)...

View of Magic Kingdom from our room...

 

We rested a little while and the sun started to set...

It was time to head to dinner. The view from right outside our room (overlooking the shops)...

Steakhouse 71...

Briana's drink (it was very sweet, she didn't love it)...

My delicious dinner (one of the best Caesar salads I've ever had - top 5 for sure)...

A little shopping after dinner...

As we were exploring the shops, the Magic Kingdom fireworks started going off (they go off around 8)...

It was very windy and actually a bit cool that evening - the only evening it was. So we didn't watch very long...

Then it was back to the room because we had a very LONG day ahead of us at Hollywood Studios and we needed to rest.

 Night view from our room...

I will say, I was taking steroids the first couple of days at Disney. So sleep for me was fleeting. I was pretty wound up from them, so that is probably what got me through those first days.

 This was our first Disney experience with a teen, so I knew our main focus was going to be rides. Plain and simple. We wanted to get on as many rides per day as possible with the least amount of waiting possible. To do that, you need strategy and money. Lots of strategy and money.

Before heading to Disney, I learned park goers need to purchase Genie+ daily (if you want access to lightning lanes for rides). It's available for purchase at midnight. If you stay on property, you can start trying to reserve lightning lanes at 7am. If you don't, you can start reserving lightning lanes when the park you are visiting opens. Since I couldn't sleep, I purchased Genie+ at midnight the first two nights there. And I was up way before 7 as well to reserve my lightning lanes. Staying on property also gives you access to all the parks 30 minutes early - which we took advantage of. A few of the newest/most popular rides have lightning lanes that are "individual" and aren't included in the Genie+ plus purchase. Those rides cost extra for fast entry. I'll tell you - Disney is in the money making business for sure.

Since it was so unbelievably busy the week we were there (President's Day week), I am sure lightning lanes for the best rides were either snatched up completely or at least the early times were taken by on-property visitors before off-property people could get to them. Genie+ actually sold out the Sunday and Monday we were there - that had never happened before. I made sure I was on my app at 7AM sharp every single day to make sure we got the rides we really wanted. And then every two hours, we would schedule another lightning lane (you cannot schedule a lightning lane for the same ride twice in one day).

We opted not to park hop during our trip - it's just too overwhelming and exhausting for me. You can't park hop until 2PM anyway. I like to focus on one park per day.

So, our main reason for visiting Disney was seeing Galaxy's Edge (Star Wars). So, our first park visit of the week was to Hollywood Studios.

 More on that next...