Welcome to my trip report on our August / September 2025 visit to Walt Disney World! This trip was sort of two trips—separate visits bookending a Disney Cruise, and this post is going to focus mostly on the first segment…and mostly on the first day of that segment.
I haven’t written a trip report in a while, and they generally take on different flavors. The idea is to supplement our core, static content with some more dynamic insights. So throughout this post you’ll see me offer commentary or examples that aren’t found in the rest of the site. The organization is mostly just chronological (what I did / walked by when), but I’ll consolidate some topics, too.
I’m calling this “Part 1” but it honestly could be the only part, if I don’t feel like the rest of the trip warrants commentary (I’ve also got a cruise to report on).
Starting The Day in EPCOT
I was arriving later in the morning that my typical approach—9:37AM versus an 8:30AM Early Entry. I got a chance to check out the latest EPCOT rope drop procedures later in my trip, but the bottom line is that you should be arriving 30 minutes before the start of Early Entry and heading to Test Track, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, or Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. Get to Frozen Ever After second, probably.
Club Cool: Now With Plastic
I’m a Club Cool addict, so I stopped in on my way to Test Track. I’m not going to blame 4-oz sips of soda for all my summer vacation weight gain, but it didn’t help.
If I have a hot take here it’s that I’m a fan of the Chinese plum soda. It’s been pointed out to me that it tastes like an ash tray, and—having once drank from my mom’s ash tray cup at a family party—I can understand that. But I still like it (though the psychological implications of all this have only suddenly dawned on me as I wrote this).
Club Cool switched to plastic cups recently. These are easier to recycle than the previous paper cups. My only commentary on this is that I have trouble getting them off one another.
While I’m here, I’ll share what I consider to be proper Club Cool etiquette. I believe the proper procedure is to queue, grab one or two sodas when it’s your turn, and step to the side. You can then casually re-approach the machine in between parties once you finish your first round.
I could get behind a system where you have to re-enter the back of the line, but generally I feel like there’s enough space on the sides of the machines, and this keeps the flow moving pretty well while allowing people to drink at their own pace.
And then there’s the “chaos is a ladder” folks who welcome the chance to just push their way to the front of any pack. I probably can’t get behind that, but what definitely doesn’t work is your group of 5 standing in front of the machines trying everything and chatting about every sip.
I Liked the New Test Track
This trip was my first chance to ride the updated Test Track, and that was where I went first when I got to the parks.
Some background—I bought Lightning Lane Multi Pass the night before and Test Track wasn’t available. But I’d seen on Thrill Data that Test Track regularly has availability pop up around 8:45AM, so around 8:40AM I started trying to modify my Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure to a Test Track. Around 8:47AM I lucked into a 10:45AM time.
At some point I’ll make a video or guide that explains the intricacies of snagging the Lightning Lane times that pop up for only an instant. For now, I’ll say that it’s much easier to modify from a Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure (or Frozen Ever After) to a “pop-up” Test Track time than it would be to just book that same time if you just left your Tier 1 slot open. I want to say modifying is always easier than booking from nothing, but maybe I’m forgetting some nuance.
I was in the park at 9:37AM and started with Single Rider on Test Track so I could ride twice (the Lightning Lane would be my second time). Unlike Test Track 2.0, where you’d skip the “design your own car” station, the Single Rider queue for Test Track 3.0 doesn’t miss out on anything major (you don’t design your own car anymore). Having walked the standby queue at a later visit, the difference is basically the chance to see more prototype vehicles. They’re cool, but nothing worth waiting in line for.
The posted standby wait was 55 minutes and I waited 6 minutes in the Single Rider queue. I discuss below that I’m no fan of the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster single rider line and generally only ride it via Lightning Lane. Conversely, the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run single rider line is typically empty. Test Track tends to be in between. I’m always willing to use the Test Track single rider line to shorten my wait (when not with Zoe), but I wouldn’t expect it to be under 10 minutes most days.
Overall I liked the new version of Test Track, but I’m not sure it’s an upgrade over the old version. I’d say this version is more EPCOT-y, and that’s a positive in itself. As for actual ride experience, I hesitate to say it’s an improvement for two reasons:
The best part of Test Track is the fast segment at the end, and that’s unchanged
The second best part of Test Track 2.0 was (arguably) designing your own vehicle, and that’s been removed
It’s not that the entire rest of the ride doesn’t matter, but I never felt strongly about it, and I still don’t feel strongly about it. As a small note, I think the ride does lean somewhat strongly into some futurism that will either be outdated or moot relatively soon, necessitating Test Track 4.0, but that’s nothing big.
After my Single Rider experience, I used the Lightning Lane. That was delayed a bit by mechanical problems, and I wound up waiting 21 minutes versus a posted standby wait of 80 minutes.
Finally, later in the trip, Zoe got to experience Test Track for the first time. It earned a positive review and a request to re-ride, but not quite enough to justify a 50-minute wait.
Cool Kid Summer Returns in 2026
Exploring World Celebration a bit, it just so happened that I crossed paths with Cool Kid Summer, so it’s a nice chance to throw in some commentary on the future.
We never found much time to appreciate Cool Kid Summer, but I did see during my trip that it would be returning next year. I popped my head into the Goofy CommuniCore space real quick. A dance party was going on, and since I was sans Zoe I just took this photo of the general space from the other side.
I ragged on the concept of Cool Kid Summer a bit when it was announced, as did others. I don’t blame us—the timing alongside Universal debuting a new theme park just made the whole thing feel weak. But in practical terms I think it came together well.
Not every Cool Kid Summer element I saw around the parks was as good as GoofyCore, but it’s fair to say this was in the ballpark of a dance party like the Disney Junior Dance parties that have permanent homes in Hollywood Studios and Disney California Adventure. It wasn’t just some hula hoops thrown into the open CommuniCore space.
My hope for 2026 is that Disney’s messaging around this improves and gets a little more precise, along with some quality upgrades across the board. I think if they could get to the point where they say CommuniCore will host an hourly “dance party with characters such as…” instead of touting “hands-on activities and nonstop summer vibes”, we’ll have something to look forward to next year.
World Celebration LOVES Seating (and Jamming)
The amount of seating in World Celebration continues to blow my mind. There are several of these nooks with a variety of seats (the variety of seating in the area also pretty impressive):
I don’t think I’ve walked through here during peak days, but are peak EPCOT days even peak World Celebration days? I’ve found the World Showcase impassible at various times (we visited on the first weekend of Food & Wine later in this trip), but that I haven’t seen that translate into World Celebration crowds. It would be nice to find a way to activate the crowds here a bit.
On that front, the Jammitors do still play nearby. Check the app for showtimes. EPCOT’s World Showcase streetmosphere is probably more famous, but Jammitors and the CommuniCore stage (currently hosting the ¡Celebración Encanto! show) bring some life to World Celebration, too.
Oktoberfest Musikanten Times
We’re heading to real Oktoberfest in a few weeks, but we’re also planning another visit to our beloved Biergarten in the Germany Pavilion in October. While the showtimes change, I always like to peek at the Musikanten showtimes when I can and then try and time my reservation to see two shows.
When it comes to table service at EPCOT, we mostly stick to two restaurants. Biergarten, because we love the ambiance, and Space 220, because Zoe loves everything about it. We’re not foodies, and we honestly don’t particularly love the food at either (though we can fill ourselves pretty easily with the buffet and made-to-order vegan sausage at Biergarten).
Let the Lightning Lane-ing Begin
Having tapped into Test Track, I was free to start planning my Lightning Lanes for the rest of the day. ICYMI, once you tap into your first ride, you basically “unlock” Multi Pass and are able to book any Multi Pass rides in any of the four parks, subject to availability and your three slots.
So let’s say it’s 8AM and you bought Multi Pass at EPCOT. The park isn’t open yet, so you haven’t tapped into anything yet. You can have this lineup:
9AM Mission: SPACE
2PM Frozen Ever After
4PM Living With The Land
But you can’t have this one yet:
9AM Mission: SPACE
2PM Frozen Ever After
4PM Test Track
because it has two Tier 1 rides at Epcot, or this one yet:
9AM Mission: SPACE
2PM Frozen Ever After
4PM Tower of Terror
because it has a ride in a different park.
But once you tap into Mission: SPACE at 9:01AM, you could even put together this lineup with three Tier 1 rides including one at another park:
10AM Test Track
2PM Frozen Ever After
4PM Slinky Dog Dash
So, if I was being hardcore today I would have just booked a 9AM time for The Seas With Nemo and Friends. I tap into that one, and immediately start working on grabbing the popular rides for the rest of my day.
But I can’t go 100% all the time, so I opted to just be patient and wait until my Test Track time before shoving my face in my phone the rest of the day. (I also figured I’d do just fine building a Lightning Lane lineup with this approach, and I was correct.)
Tapped into Test Track, I was able to grab a 6:50PM Frozen Ever After. I was NOT planning on staying in EPCOT until 6:50PM, but I figured it was worth trying to see if I could get a better time. As I mentioned earlier, this is an area where, it’s better to be modifying than to try and grab a time fresh. Indeed, 7 minutes later at 10:51AM I had an 11:45AM time for Frozen Ever After. I wound up waiting 8 minutes for that, versus a posted standby wait of 65 minutes.
From EPCOT, I was heading to Hollywood Studios. If you’re park hopping from EPCOT, your best options are Hollywood Studios—via walking path, Skyliner, or boat—or Magic Kingdom via Monorail. We almost always wind up splitting time between EPCOT and Hollywood Studios once we plan to visit one.
I was able to pretty easily grab early afternoon times for Tower of Terror and Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. I opted to not even try for Slinky Dog Dash, though I did manage to snag it same-day for our whole group of 5 later in the trip. I love Slinky Dog Dash, but it’s one of those things where I’ll only put real effort into it for Zoe.
When I’m on my own and want some mental space for things other than Lightning Lanes, I just skip it. But also, when I’m on my own I can constantly be moving and finding other things to do. When we were together as a group later in the trip, I’m able / willing / sentenced to sit at a bench refreshing the app while everyone else has fun in stores or taking a sitting snack break. (This is easier to stomach when we’re with Grandma and Grandpa. When it’s just Zoe, Emily, and me, I don’t really like to be an absent parent or to model screen time, but anyone who has tried to get their kid on Slinky Dog Dash or Test Track or Peter Pan’s Flight knows we’re all trying to walk a fine line in these matters. Having to compete with bots that people are paying to snag the times as soon as they pop up doesn’t help, but I digress…)
After Frozen Ever After, I grabbed a late afternoon time for Na’vi River Journey. I wasn’t totally sure about my schedule, but nothing else at Hollywood Studios really demanded that third slot (Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and Smugglers Run both have Single Rider queues, and I was fine skipping the other rides).
Heading to Hollywood Studios
On the way out of EPCOT I passed some fun characters. First, there was the 12PM “surprise” character greeting between American Adventure and Italy (by the Joffrey’s).
This is not on the schedule but routinely happens (other sources may have more specific details) and featured Captain Hook, Smee, Eeyore, and Big Al today. I also saw Rafiki greeting near the International Gateway entrance (this is usually a pretty hot spot for characters).
My hope had been to ride Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure via Single Rider, but it was down, so I headed to Hollywood Studios. (We did Remy’s via single rider later in the trip. 13 minutes vs. posted 50 minute standby. A girl in front of us had to wait at the front of the line twice because a family insisted on having the vehicle all to themselves. That’s not a thing.)
I opted to walk to Hollywood Studios, as I usually do. I recommend Skyliner or Friendship Boat, especially during the summer, unless you want an excuse to text your partner your favorite pop culture references:
The temperature was somewhere in the 90s, but your grandparents were right—it’s the humidity that gets you. The punishing walk took me just under 23 minutes, which was the time from when I saw Rafiki to when I got to Sunset Boulevard (where Tower of Terror is).
I waited 13 minutes (spooOOOooky) in the Lightning Lane versus a posted standby wait of 35 minutes. Then I did the most real part of work I’d do this day—waited Single Rider for Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.
Look, I think Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is a fine ride. It’s a good use of a Lightning Lane. But the regular standby queue—consisting largely of an outdoor (but covered) cement box—is awful. And the Single Rider queue is so slow. This isn’t a complaint, per se. No one is entitled a Single Rider queue to begin with, let alone a fast one. But overall I just don’t recommend riding this via anything other than Lightning Lane, and I won’t personally do it. Professionally, though, you gotta do what you gotta do.
The posted standby wait was 60 minutes, and I waited 40 in the single rider line. This more or less accords with my expectations for the line. It’s maybe 5 minutes better than I feared, but I still think 40 minutes is longer than I’m willing to wait just to have my party split up. (Solo, without a Lightning Lane, it’s not the worst use of time in this park, I admit.)
With that assignment done, I was finally free to head to my real reason for coming to Hollywood Studios today—Ronto Roasters. I can’t say why I love Ronto Roasters, but as a vegetarian I absolutely love the Triple Suns Breakfast Wrap and the Zucchi Wrap (I personally prefer this combo to the fake-meat Ronto-less Garden Wrap at Disneyland). I love the flavors, and I love street food, and good vegetarian street food is hard to come by. The piece of zucchini was gigantic to the point of probably offending regular omnivores:
I should have swung by Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run to confirm my beloved Single Rider line at that ride was still good, but I was rushing a bit. We checked it later in the trip and found no wait versus a 20-minute posted standby wait.
Rise of the Resistance also still has a single rider queue. It doesn’t appear in the official listing on the Disney World app. This is odd since that listing debuted after the Rise queue opened. Single rider queues are always subject to availability, but I’m still a little more nervous about relying the Rise one until it joins the “official” list.
My strong—very strong—recommendation for the Rise of Resistance single rider queue is to only use it if you’ve ridden before. It skips parts of the queue that shouldn’t be missed by first-time riders. This isn’t “cool parts of the queue”. It’s “there’s a story here and you literally miss it.” It’s not a particularly fast single rider line, but I’ve never found it as bad at Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. I didn’t have time for it today.
Walls are up for Monstropolis / Monsters Inc. Land coming to Hollywood Studios. We will miss MuppetVision 3D, but change happens.
I rode Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, waiting 14 minutes in the Lightning Lane versus a posted 40-minute standby wait. My current hobby is spotting Pluto throughout the ride (I’m maybe missing him in one scene, unsure).
On my way out of Hollywood Studios I waited 9 minutes in a line that was basically back to the door for a Salted Caramel Cold Brew. I used to be a big flavored Starbucks Cold Brew person, but I’ve since switched to primarily black coffee. The sugar really smacks when you aren’t used to it.
Next Up: Animal Kingdom
Lucking into a short wait for the bus to Animal Kingdom, I was inside that park 27 minutes after getting my coffee at Hollywood Studios.
It’s worth a quick (“quick”) digression to talk about Lightning Lanes at Animal Kingdom. Multi Pass is not very popular at Animal Kingdom, and the park as a whole generally doesn’t see long waits. This means you don’t really need to use all your Lightning Lane slots for Animal Kingdom if you’re going to be park hopping.
For example, let’s say it’s 10AM at Animal Kingdom and you’re planning to hop to Magic Kingdom after lunch. You were responsible and booked Na’vi River Journey for 11AM.
And let’s say the return times for DINOSAUR, Kali River Rapids, Expedition Everest, and Kilimanjaro Safaris are all 10:05AM (i.e. immediate). There’s no sense in wasting your other two slots on two of those rides. Book one, tap in, and then book the next. Use your third slot for something popular at Magic Kingdom later in the day.
This is a dream scenario, but hopefully you’re able to translate the example into some more practical scenarios too. For example, this motif sometimes appears at Magic Kingdom with rides like Dumbo, Barnstormer, Mad Tea Party, and Under the Sea. If you want to ride those all from 2PM to 3PM, you often don’t need them all booked in advance. Book one or two and then grab the others as you ride, leaving you one or two slots free for popular rides later.
That is all important advice, which is why I wrote it, but it didn’t apply this day because I actually wasn’t planning on using Lightning Lanes at Magic Kingdom tonight. I was meeting Emily and Zoe, who didn’t have Multi Pass, just hoping to see Disney Starlight. (FWIW, they were at Typhoon Lagoon with Grandma and Grandpa, using the check-in day water park perk.)
For my part, I wound up with the following lineup:
DINOSAUR - 13 minutes LL vs. 25 posted standby
Expedition Everest - 8 minutes single rider vs. 25 posted standby
Kali River Rapids - 11 minutes LL vs. 20 posted standby
Na’vi River Journey - 5 minutes LL vs. 30 posted standby
And here’s a look at some of the return times available at Magic Kingdom a bit later after I got to Magic Kingdom. These should give you some idea of what I could have easily booked if I’d been planning on continuing to use Multi Pass in that park:
As for Animal Kingdom, my main goal these days is always to make sure to get on DINOSAUR, which I did. Dinoland USA will be fully closed beginning sometime in February 2, 2026. By the time I publish this, The Boneyard will be closed, leaving only DINOSAUR and Restaurantosaurus (and Trilo-Bites) through February 1.
There are free lockers near Kali River Rapids if you want to store your stuff so it doesn’t get wet on the ride. I’ll usually grab one if there’s availability but I won’t wait around if they’re full or there’s a crowd. I lucked into one of the last rides on Kali River Rapids before nearby lightning (capitalized that as I typed it…) caused a closure. I will say everyone on Kali River Rapids seemed to have a good time. We got pretty wet, and while I tend to feel the ride is a little short and underwhelming, it was laughs all around on this one.
Not hard to spot this storm.
I’ll eat anything Tamu Tamu Refreshments wants to sell me. 10/10 (from my basic palate) for this Pineapple Crisp Sundae
The storm was inbound as I headed toward Pandora. I was able to get onto Na’vi River Journey (via the Lightning Lane mentioned a few times above) without getting too wet. Since there was time left in the day and I didn’t see the need to rush out in the rain, I headed to Flight of Passage.
If you’re still reading at this point, you deserve to know I haven’t ridden Flight of Passage in many visits.
I love the ride, but Animal Kingdom hasn’t required much of my professional attention recently because of the ease of touring it. And when we’re there as a family, it’s usually for a morning of Boneyard—DINOSAUR—Kilimanjaro Safaris (I guess that will change). I’ll sometimes buy a Lightning Lane just to make sure everything is where I left it, but it’s rare these days for me to rope drop or wait in the standby queue.
I didn’t make the connection at the time, but given my earlier complaints about the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster queue (and single rider queue), it’s worth pointing out I was pretty glad to wait out the rain for an hour in the Avatar: Flight of Passage queue. The ride is definitely worth the time, and the queue has plenty of cool highlights:
There’s a lengthy gap between the cave paintings and the research lab, but the overall experience is pretty great. I waited 1 hour versus a posted standby time of 45 minutes.
I did nowhere near “everything” at Animal Kingdom, but it’s notable that I was able to ride five rides—three via Multi Pass, one via single rider, and one—specifically Flight of Passage—via standby in a span of under 3 hours. The only ride I didn’t make it onto was Kilimanjaro Safaris.
As for my total ride haul for the day:
Test Track (twice)
Frozen Ever After
Tower of Terror
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
DINOSAUR
Expedition Everest
Kali River Rapids
Na’vi River Journey
Avatar Flight of Passage
Rain, Rain, Didn’t Go Away
After a short wait for a bus, I was inside Magic Kingdom by 6:50PM. This is, unfortunately, when the rain caused the real problems. Our only goal for this evening was to watch Disney Starlight, but parades and stage shows are the first things to get cut by rain. After a few delays, the earlier showing of the parade was eventually cancelled.
Disney Starlight is running twice each night until early October (at least). Unfortunately, the second, 11PM showing tonight was just too late for us. We wanted to have a good, long day tomorrow.
That day was going to be at Magic Kingdom, which meant we didn’t feel much pressure to run around the park getting rides in tonight, either. We hopped on a few things with short waits, but the highlight was dinner at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe (Zoe’s pick—big fan of Sonny Eclipse) and this picture that I’ll close the post with:
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
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Just starting out? Check out our Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World Lightning Lane Guide and Strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, Epcot Lightning Lane Strategy, Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Strategy, and Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane Strategy.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.