***Do I really need to post a warning, I think you know this will probably be long :)***
Alright, here's the real deal. We went to "the happiest place on Earth" from Feb. 4th to the 12th to visit with the mouse.
We flew Southwest for the first time since it was cheaper and there were no added fees. I was a little nervous at first since they don't assign seating, it's first come first served, but Paul was able to get us "A" boarding passes (A21-A27) so I was able to relax a little since I figured we would all be able to sit together. When we boarded the plane we realized that the flight originated somewhere else, Boston maybe?, and there were already people on it. We did manage to get seats close by but we had to split up 3 and 3. I, and I hate to say this, ended up sitting with both Megan and Zach. Paul got the easy kids so his plane trip was pretty enjoyable. I got the child that talks non-stop and the other child that gets so easily excited he can't sit still. Plus to add to my misery we were delayed leaving by 2 hours, an hour of that time we sat on the plane. Here's my flying companions:
Once we landed in Orlando we took the Magical Express bus over to our resort. I loved the fact that we didn't have to drive anywhere and we didn't even have to pick up our checked bags. They were going to pick them up for us and send them to our resort. We stayed at the Boardwalk Inn for all but one night we were there. What a great resort but we had a lot of walking to do just to get to our room. We later switched to Port Orleans Riverside for our last night, it was nice too just not as big.
During our time there we visited all 4 parks at least twice, we didn't do any of the waterparks. Of course we had to start with the Magic Kingdom since that was the original park. As you look at these pictures you will see that we're all in sweatshirts early on but then gradually end up in shorts. That's because it was COLD the first two days. It was so cold that I even put a hat and mittens on Zachary that first full day we were there. Here we are in the Magic Kingdom on our first day, you can barely see the castle behind us.
I made all our dinner reservations before we left and on our first night I thought we would start out with a character dinner at 1900 Park Fair. We got to see Cinderella, her prince, Lady Tremaine (the wicked stepmother), Anastasia and Drizella (the stepsisters). The stepsisters were absolutely hilarious! I was almost on the floor laughing so hard. Later during the dinner they asked who was celebrating a birthday so Megan and I raised our hands and they came over and gave us tiaras. For some reason they gave Zach a crown, not sure why, but okay, we'll take it.
While Paul was riding Rock 'n' Rollercoaster with the girls in Disney's Hollywood Studios I took Zach over to meet Lightening McQueen and Mater. He loves the movie Cars and I thought he would be a little more excited. He wasn't. It didn't phase him one bit that he was standing between the two. Oh well, at least I enjoyed it.
This picture was taken by Megan while we were waiting for the rest to ride Mission Space in Epcot.
I know it sounds like I was always the one waiting but what usually would happen was Paul would take whatever girls wanted to ride with him and I would "baby swap" it. That means he would wait in the regular line and when he was done I could take up to 2 of the kids back on and enter through the fastpass line so my wait was much shorter. We did this all the time, it was great. That's one of the reasons why I love Disney, they make it somewhat easy to be there with a young child.
In Epcot we would visit all the countries and try on the hats. Here's my kids in Mexico.
Here's another character dinner I planned. It was at Akershus in Norway and we got to meet Belle, Aurora, Alice in Wonderland, Ariel and Jasmine. Lauren and I both thought that Jasmine was a little snobby sounding but Zachary (at least according to the people at the table behind me) was eyeing her belly button so at least one of us liked her.
And of course here's the hat picture from Norway. Lauren and Megan were pretending to sing. I always had to take all of these pictures quick because Zach would try to take the hats off (as he's doing in the picture below).
The girls loved riding Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom. When we were there 4 years ago we saw this ride being built. I thought it could have been a little better, it was kind of cool riding it at night though.
Thank goodness Zach is pretty easy going. Everyday that we were there he would take his naps in his stroller. The one day I did go back to the room so Megan could take a nap was the time he fell asleep and woke up before we got there. That was fun, I had to try and keep him quiet while Megan slept.
This one's in Animal Kingdom on Kali River Rapids. Zach was two inches too short so he couldn't ride so I stayed off with him. I'm glad I did because Paul came off the ride soaked!
One night for dinner we went over to another resort to eat, the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We ate at Boma's which was a buffet and for dessert our waitress brought out a special dessert for both Megan and I to celebrate our birthdays. We each got a plate like the one below. I had gotten cupcakes at other restaurants but I thought this one was unique. Very delicious too.
I just want to mention that from the 5th to the 9th (the 9th being my actual birthday) I wore my birthday button that I got at the parks. You can see me wearing it in a lot of these pictures like the one below. I didn't wear it for the free stuff (though those things were nice!), I mainly wore it to see how many people would say happy birthday to me. I got the most in Animal Kingdom. It was nice to hear complete strangers say, "Happy birthday Amy." I sort of expected the Cast Members to say it but it took me by surprise to hear other people say it. On my actual birthday I even got sung to in French since we were eating in a French restaurant and they put a candle in my Creme Brulee.
We only stopped at one character spot to get pictures taken the whole time we were there. This one is actually on my birthday and I really wanted to get pictures of Mickey and the gang. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and Donald. I think Zach was in awe of all the characters and he wasn't one bit shy meeting them.
Yet another hat picture, this time we were in Morocco.
Megan's birthday is the 12th and when I originally planned the trip we were leaving on the 11th. So I had already planned on celebrating her birthday on the 10th with dinner in the castle (Cinderella's Royal Table). That was a fun dinner. Paul and I were called the king and queen and they referred to the kids as princesses and the prince. The kids either got a wand or a sword, we got a picture of us with Cinderella and all the kids got wishing stars when we left. Megan got a special cake since it was her birthday. (Those birthday buttons were amazing!) The fireworks went off while we were in the castle, couldn't see them too well but it was neat to just be there.
Here's the little prince with his plate of noodles. At any kind of buffet anywhere on Disney property kids under the age of 3 get to eat for free. This wasn't a buffet but they brought him this plate for free. I was very surprised at that as I was ready to share my food with him. He loved the Mickey plate. He's blowing on his noodles in the picture.
I had said before that we added a day on to our vacation because of the space shuttle launch. We had it all planned out, I booked a different Disney resort for that one night, Paul switched our airline tickets, etc... The morning that we were leaving for Disney is when we found out that the launch had been postponed. Oh well, it was a bummer but what are you going to do? Instead of seeing the space shuttle we added an extra day to our tickets so we could at least visit a park in the morning of our last day. Plus it was Megan's birthday so she got to have some extra fun on her day and take advantage of the birthday promotion.
We had two Magical Moments happen that morning. The first was in the Emporium gift shop on Main Street. We were using Megan's fun card (the $63 she got for her birthday) to buy souvenirs and the cashier noticed Megan's birthday button. He sang her a song then called another cast member over and he went and got a mini golf game and set it up for her to play. He was being funny and Megan was enjoying it and the cast member handed Megan a certificate about the Magical Moment.
The next one was when Paul, Kristin, Megan and Zach went into a Christmas shop. Lauren and I hung outside for a bit but went inside when Paul told us they were decorating a tree.
And the top of the tree.
The cast member there gave them another Magical Moments certificate and let each one of them (she even included Lauren) pick out a Mickey head ornament with the year 2009 on them. Very nice! She boxed them all up for us too so they wouldn't break.
We got two more rides in that morning before we had to leave. The first being the Indy Speedway where you drive the cars. Here's my ornery looking boy while waiting in line for that. Paul went with Zachary, Lauren and Kristin each went by themselves and I went with Megan. Megan was scared to drive at first but towards the end she was wanting to go again.
Our very last ride in Disney was Goofy's Barnstormer. It's a roller coaster for young kids like Zach. While we waited in line he was fascinated with watching the roller coaster go by, he would crack up laughing when it got close to him. Lauren said he enjoyed the ride too. Here's the picture from where I was sitting behind.
Okay, whew! If you've read this far this is it. After riding the roller coaster we hopped on the train to take us to the front of the park. From there we took a bus to our resort then once at our resort we took a different bus to the airport. I tell you, it was modes of transportation week. I didn't even mention the boat rides we took all week or the monorail rides. Here's the girls on the Magical Express bus.
And just so he doesn't feel left out here's a very short video of Zach on the bus. See what kind of child we had to deal with all week? You would think he had ants in his pants.
In case you missed it he says, "Eww, nasty" at the beginning. Not sure why he was saying that though.
We had a great trip and hopefully created some wonderful memories for the kids. Can't wait to go back someday!
