Walt Disney World — My Top 5 places to relax

Planning and taking a trip to Walt Disney World is one of the best vacation destinations that you can make, in my opinion.  There is so much to do at Walt Disney World, everything from experiencing the awesome roller coasters, to checking out all of the incredible talent on display in the stage shows, movies, and parades, to just picking some of your favorite attractions and riding them over and over and over again!

But, for me, some of the best reasons to take a Walt Disney vacation is to enjoy all of the rich details that the parks provide, and to take time to enjoy the things that exist in Walt Disney World that you can’t find a FastPass for, or don’t have wait times of 30 minutes or longer.  So today, this post is focused on my top five places to relax at Walt Disney World.

For some of you, planning and taking your Disney vacation is such that when you get there, all you want to do is go all out, commando style, if you will, and go from park opening to closing, riding every ride, catching everything you can non-stop.  I’m not like that, though; oh sure, there are certainly moments when we go out for quite a spell, focused on riding this popular ride and that popular ride, but for me, I truly love the way I can be in the middle of thousands of people, and still find ways to slow down and smell the roses.  My list isn’t in any particular order, because where I am at a particular moment will dictate which of these favorite I choose.  I hope you enjoy!

1) First on my list is a favorite place of mine, the top of the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse.  I know that a choice like this seems quite odd, but it always amazes me every time I take the time to enjoy this leisurely climb up the big tree that serves as this attraction, and when I am up there, I can almost always take a great picture of something in the Magic Kingdom.  During this climb, I caught a shot of this building — anyone recognize it?

Space Mountain as seen from Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse

2) One of my favorite things to do anywhere, not just at Walt Disney World, is to take photographs.  However, when I am on vacation at Disney World, a lot of my view is seen through that of my viewfinder on my camera!  I am always looking for that shot that I will be able to look at for years to come, and instantly be transformed back into the memory of when that shot was taken.  One of my favorite subjects to photograph is the beautiful architecture of the buildings, and also couple that with the incredible foliage that you will find at the Magic Kingdom.  So, to make a long story short, I really enjoy relaxing with my camera, near the hub, looking at some of the incredible foliage and buildings, such as this one, taken in August, 2009:

The Crystal Palace

3) One place that I think gets overlooked a bit — at least by most — is over at Epcot, in the Germany Pavilion.  If you haven’t explored it much, you might want to take a few minutes to examine all of the incredible details that you can find in the miniature train layout that they have there.  I love trains, and that train set is awesome.  Did you know that they decorate the train set throughout the year with various things that pertain to whichever special event they are hosting at the time?  Here is a picture that I like showing part of the town.

The village on the Germany Pavilion Train layout

4) Another favorite location of mine is the Canada Pavilion!  As you may have seen on a post I wrote for Chip & Company, the Canada Pavilion is home to some great things to explore, including the gardens there.  I really enjoy taking extra time to check out the beautiful scenery of that pavilion!

The gardens over at Canada Pavilion

5) Perhaps one of the most relaxing things I can do at the Magic Kingdom is to take a train ride.  No, not this train:

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Rather, the train that I really enjoy taking a relaxing ride on is this train:

The Roger E. Broggie Locomotive on the Walt Disney World Railroad

To me, there is just something nostalgic, relaxing, turn of the century about riding on the authentic steam trains that travel around the Magic Kingdom.  If Cindy and Sophie would let me, I’d probably ride on the train for two or three laps before getting off.  Perhaps part of the reason I like it so much is because we don’t ride on the train all that often.  Maybe it’s because I love trains.  Maybe it’s because of the grandeur of those classic steam engines, and the beautiful detailing that accompanies them.  Or maybe it’s for none of these reasons — perhaps it’s just because I have an old soul, as someone once told me.  Whatever the reason, I love riding the train around the Magic Kingdom, and it never gets old.

 

Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort Pool

You know, I could go on for hours about all the relaxing things that I like to do.  I thought I was going to write about relaxing at the pool over at Bay Lake Tower (or whichever resort we happen to be staying at), but that didn’t make my top five.  Although, the pool at BLT is awesome — if you haven’t seen it, here it is as taken from our balcony when we were there last month.

I also thought that I was going to include the incredible shows that you can watch at the parks, including Mickey’s PhilharMagic over at Magic Kingdom, Finding Nemo: The Musical over at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Beauty and the Beast — Live on Stage over at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  Those shows are awesome, and still relaxing because you are able to take a load off after a long day of walking to all the incredible rides you have ridden.  But they didn’t make the list either this time.

In the end, I guess what really matters to me is that you can find probably a thousand different places to relax at the Walt Disney World Resort.  While I have listed my top five relaxation points, there are many more that I didn’t include.  Tell me, where are your favorite relaxation places at Walt Disney World?

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