Magic Kingdom - Day 7

Day 7, Nov 19th, we had enough time before our flight left to spend half a day at the Magic Kingdom.  The other days there we had kept an eye on the wait times for the lines to see either Anna and Elsa, or Rapunzel and Cinderella.  They were ridiculously long so we never attempted it.  Bree is a huge Rapunzel fan, Darcy loves Elsa.  So the plan was to rope drop getting in line to see the princesses.  Paul took Darcy and Drew to stand in line to see Elsa and Anna, I took Mason and Bree to the Rapunzel/Cinderella line.  We didn't tell the girls beforehand in case the lines were already huge.  But Mason, Bree and I  were third in line to see our princesses and our line moved right along.  We got in and out quickly.  Bree was soooo excited to see Rapunzel.  We hadn't seen her anywhere else the entire time so I'm glad she finally got to meet her.  She was chatting with her and gave her a big hug when we left.  She was pretty happy.  I made Mason get in the picture too, even though I told him he didn't have to, just to get him in line with us.  We were even able to ride the carousel nearby 2 times and browse a gift shop before the others were done.  I guess Paul said dads would race to the line which made it look short and then moms and kids would finally catch up and squeeze through to the dad in line.  I call that blatant cheating.  So not fair to the little girls who are in line waiting to have to see all those other girls get to pass them up.  Not cool people.  And that was a line people used fast passes for so it turned out that even though they were near the front of the stand by line, they stood there for at least a half an hour to get  to see Elsa and Anna.  I think it was worth it though.  Darcy looks pretty happy in her pictures.  Score one for mom and dad!

 

 

  After the princesses we had fast passes for Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain.  We also did some final souvenir shopping and ate lunch at the Liberty Tree Tavern.  It was hard to say goodbye.  By the last day we had it all down to a science and 20,000 steps a day in the 85 degree muggy heat was no big deal.  Kind of.  Bree and Darcy were at each other's throats most of the last 2 days from being cooped up next to each other in the stroller all day every day.  And there were a couple of times we had some arguments over who sat next to whom on rides.  We had a discussion before we ever left for the vacation about seating and sleeping arrangements.  We had two bigs (Paul and I), two mediums (Drew and Mason), and two smalls (Darcy and Bree).  Most of the time the rides required a big to be with a small so the mediums got stuck on the rides together.  They took it very well actually.  Bree and Darcy would switch off on which big they went on rides with.  I think it worked out pretty well but I never really asked them.  The sleeping arrangements worked out so that Paul and I each got our own bed in different rooms.  Then Mason stayed in my room and Drew in Paul's and the littles would switch every night which medium they slept with.  They all survived so I guess it worked in the end.

This is the last picture we took at Disney World.  We had the time of our lives.  If it hadn't been for the theft of my purse, I would say it was darn near the perfect vacation.  We had an amazing time and saw some amazing things.  We have been so blessed with the adventures we are able to participate in as a family and I hope our kids have lasting, wonderful memories of our trip to Florida November 10-19, 2015.

Disney's Animal Kingdom - Day 5

Animal Kingdom is my favorite park at Disney World after Magic Kingdom.  Its kind of strange though, I am not an animal lover and I wasn't looking forward to this day at all.  In fact, we had heard from a couple different people that you could get away with only spending half a day at this park.  So I started the day thinking maybe we would go back to a different park if we got bored here.  Didn't happen!  Our fast pass for Expedition Everest, the best ride at this park we had heard, was for 2:30 in the afternoon so we decided to rope drop this ride to get it out of the way so we could leave early if we wanted to.  IT WAS AWESOME!  Expedition Everest is the best ride in all of Disney World!  Crazy, Crazy ride!  We all rode it the first time and stayed around to ride it again on our fast passes.  Well, Paul, Mason, and I did.  It was a little much for the girls I guess.  Maybe because you go backwards in the dark at a million miles an hours.  It was so good!

 After Everest we rode the Kali River Rapids.  We learned our lesson about soaked shoes and clothes at Universal Studios so Paul made sure we had our rain ponchos and flip flops to change into for the ride.  We got soaked!  Well, Paul and Mason did.  The girls were smart enough to wear the ponchos.  Bree and I rode twice in a row and then the others went one more time for good measure.  The place wasn't packed yet and it was so hot already it was easy to get back on and get cooled off.  That was a nice ride too.
  We found a dinosaur section with some tamer rides for little ones like the Tricera Top Spin and Primeval Whirl, but we didn't ever go on the Dinosaur ride.  It looked a bit scary for Bree and we were running behind schedule because of the three trips on the river ride.  But it was Paul's fault this time, not mine.  We watched the Finding Nemo musical, Flights of Wonder with real birds, Festival of the Lion King, and Its Tough to be a Bug.  We took the Kilimanjaro Safari which was a ride on a huge safari vehicle through acres of protected wildlife.  We saw giraffes, hippos, zebras, a rhino and all kinds of animals I had never heard of.  It was very cool.  At the end of the day we took the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail where we saw gorillas!  I was so excited, I'd never seen a gorilla in real life before.  They were gorgeous!  Amazing animals.  I was thrilled with the opportunity to see them.  And I was surprised at how many they had too.  Its a real animal conservation place they have at Disney World.  I was also surprised at all the hippos they had.  What a great place it was to visit.  There aren't tons of rides at this park but we loved it anyway.  We managed to spend all day there and enjoyed it all.  The kids all found a stuffed animal to buy here too.  I guess you can count Mason's Yeti as an animal.  Bree got some cross between a kitten and a yeti which she calls a keti named Frost.  Darcy chose a snow leopard and named him Everest, and Drew found yet another hippo and named him Tiki.  Now we will never forget the darn Tiki Room and song that went with it.

 
For lunch we ate at the Flame Tree Barbecue.  Excellent of course.  And for dinner we went to 'Ohana at the Polynesian Resort.  It was so good.  Talk about massive amounts of food!  Even Mason was full after that dinner.  Mason, Darcy, and Bree all participated in the coconut broom races and received leis.  Drew was too mature for such antics I guess. Or she was too full of chocolate milk to move.  That was one of my favorite days of our whole trip.  There were also beautiful flowers and bushes and trees in Animal Kingdom.  Did I mention I loved this park!?

Epcot - Day 3

  Epcot!  That iconic ball is recognized anywhere.  When we first saw it I was kind of disappointed.  I thought it would be huge but its really not that humongous.  Epcot was an interesting park.  You enter right at the ball, then there is the amusement park part, then past that there is the World Showcase where you walk around a lake and you find food and small bits of culture from all over the world. 

  We rope dropped Soarin though that wasn't the original plan.  I had overheard the day before a guy telling his friends his favorite ride at DW is Soarin.  So I told Paul and he adjusted our schedule accordingly so we could rope drop it.  It was a really good ride, skimming over the Golden Gate Bridge, fields of wheat, mountains, and cities.  Not my all time favorite but still pretty good.  We also rode Spaceship Earth, The Seas with Nemo and Friends, Turtle Talk With Crush, The American Adventure, and Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros.  Living With the Land was a leisurely ride through pretty much test labs they have set up to try different methods of farming.  It was pretty cool for me because I love to garden and I came away with a couple of ideas I would like to try in the spring.  We rode Mission: Space, a ride in which 2 people died after riding it years ago.  Since then they modified it and took out some of the g-forces and spins.  If you choose to.  We all chose to ride the wussy version but that was still a crazy ride.  I've developed some claustrophobia as I've gotten older and that ride kind of got to me.  You are strapped in and then they close you in a fake spaceship cockpit and you can't move and even if you could there is no place to go.  Lets just say I will never volunteer to really go to Mars in a spaceship.  It was fun though if I concentrated on looking out my "window" at the martian landscape.  The last, and best ride of the day, was Test Track.  It was cool because we got to design our own vehicle with a bunch of different parameters and then we competed against each other on the track as to whose vehicle performed better.  I'm pretty sure Drew, Bree, and I had the vehicle that won, though Paul, Darcy, and Mason had a nice one too.  At one point on the ride the car you're in just takes off and you are going so fast!  It was lots of fun.  That was a family favorite.  You see how much I'm enjoying it.

The afternoon was spent walking around the World Showcase.  We had lunch in Mexico and dinner in Norway at Akershus Royal Banquet.  We had dinner with the princesses and some very good food.  I was proud of Darcy and her willingness to try all the great food.  She even ordered salmon for dinner.  While Drew drank her chocolate milk.  And a good time was had by all!

We watched a lumberjack show in Canada and looked around France, Japan, and Morocco.  That part of Epcot definitely caters to a more mature crowd.  There weren't many ears on little girl's heads wandering around and the alcohol was flowing freely.  We even got to witness a war of words between some tipsy people about who knocked into whom.  It was a different experience than the other DW parks.  We stayed till dark to watch Illuminations:  Reflections of Earth, which was a fireworks and light show in the middle of the lake.  Pretty cool.  It was very strange while we there having everything decorated for Christmas, but having the weather in the high 80's.  And then it was even stranger when it got dark at 5:30.  It was hard for us to wrap our heads around it being winter, not summer.  Paul and I made a pact that we would never retire to Florida.  Too weird for me.

Disney's Hollywood Studios - Day 2 and 6

Hollywood Studios!  Now this place was more Drew and Mason's speed I think.  It wasn't my favorite, and if we had the trip to do over we probably could have gotten away with only spending one day in this particular park, but it did have its bright spots.  The first one being Toy Story Midway Mania.  That is the most popular ride in the park so of course it is the ride we rope-dropped both mornings.  Throughout the day the line was always at least an hour long wait.  No thanks!  The Rock 'n' Roller Coaster was also a pretty good ride.  It took off so fast even I could feel it in my stomach and rides usually don't get to me like that.  I think Mason had the record for rides on that one.  We all rode it the first time except for Bree who was too short and Darcy who was too scared.  The second day we had fast passes and I can't remember how it all worked out but Mason rode quite a few times.  He's probably the best on rides after me.  With Paul, Drew, and Bree at the bottom.  I was proud of Paul though, he rode everything but the Tea Cups, with the help of his buddy dramamine.  Whatever gets you through!  I went on the Tower of Terror by myself while Paul waited with the kids and then he and Mason went.  That was one of my favorites too.  The drops were so much fun!  Darcy avoided it the first day but on the second day she actually rode it twice with me.  We used Drew and Bree's wristbands to get in again on their fast passes.  Darcy was pretty proud of herself, as was I!

We also rode the Star Tours ride a couple times over both days, The Great Movie Ride, Muppet Vision 3D, Voyage of the Little Mermaid, Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, Lights, Motor, Action! Extreme Stunt Show, Disney Junior Live on Stage, Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage, and the best show of all - For the First Time in Forever:  A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration. It was soooooo good!  There were a couple of narrators on stage and they would do their little jokes and tell the Frozen story and then we would all get to sing along to the songs from the movie.  It was so good!  Just singing at the top of your voice and no one cares cuz they are doing the same thing.  Unless your name is Mason and then you are just sitting in the chair with a surly look on your face, wishing it was over because at any second you are going to burst into song and you don't want us to see you.  There was even "snow" at the end (soap suds).  It was so much fun.  The little girls and I loved it.  Luckily we got to do that twice too.

The first day we ate lunch at Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano.  That was excellent of course.  We got preferred seating tickets to the Fantasmic show later that night by eating there.  Dinner was at the ABC Commissary.  Usually our snacks were either bottles of pop or ice cream sandwiches.  A couple times it was cotton candy, popcorn, or a muffin.  Fantasmic was a neat show on an island with us in the grandstands on the other side.  It told Disney stories, and characters would go by in boats while the action was taking place on the island.  Every one of their live shows was excellent.  It was just astounding to me first, how many employees the Disney World park system must have.  I couldn't even hazzard a guess.  And second, how much money was running in and out of that place.  We paid a ton of money for entertainment, and they paid a ton of money to keep us entertained.  Amazing place!

Funny story, and maybe you had to be there to get it, but like I said, we were rope droppers and we stopped for nothing as we race walked our way to the first ride of the morning.  Well the first morning we were in this park, its day four of our vacation of walking miles and miles non-stop, Mason all of a sudden yelled, "OW!  I think I just popped out my hip!"  He was totally stopped, couldn't move, so I stopped with him.  I tried to get Paul to stop but there was nothing short of his own death that would have made him slow his race to the ride!  I was laughing so hard at the absurdity of the situation and I was probably a little punch drunk at the time from lack of sleep, heat and humidity, and days of herculean efforts, but I found it hysterical.  I pulled Mason along with me as he's limping and whimpering to the ride.  I was laughing so hard in line trying to explain to Paul what happened that I was crying.  It still makes be laugh.  Are we having fun yet!?

The second day we spent in this park, Nov. 18th, we ate lunch at Pizza Planet from Toy Story.  The kids finally found some food they liked!  It was really good and also tons of fun to be there.  For dinner we ate at the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant.  We sat in tables supposed to look like cars, and watched old Sci-Fi movie clips on the big screen, like we were at a drive-in theater.  The things this place comes up with!  It was a fun place to eat.   After dinner we walked through the Streets of America which were completely covered in Christmas lights. I've never seen so many!   It was beautiful!

As huge Once Upon a Time fans, we were so excited to see Mr Gold's Pawn shop and a poster advertising the show.  We were hoping to find some merchandise but no such luck.  We still had a great time in the park.  Here are a few more pictures of our days in Hollywood Studios.

 

Disney World - Magic Kingdom Days 1, 4, and 7

 \This is where we
stayed at Disney World.  The All Star Sports Hotel, the Basketball division. We had two adjoining rooms so everyone would have a bed to sleep in.  It was nice to have that extra room to put all our stuff too.   We were so excited to see we were in room 2319!  That's the code on Monsters Inc. for when an employee is contaminated by a human object.  We thought it was hilarious we happened to be given such a significant room number.  Since we stayed on site at DW, we were able to take advantage of the free meal plan they offer at certain times of the year.  We upgraded the package for a few bucks and ended up with a Quick Service, a Table Service, and a snack a day, every day, per person.  That was a lot of food!  We ate Cocoa Puffs and Frosted Flakes in the morning in our hotel room and then usually the quick service was lunch.  There was so much food left over from just lunch that at first we would try to take it with us to eat later, but the table service dinner was even huger with tons more food and we soon realized we would never be able to eat any of the leftovers.  I felt horrible leaving so much food behind.  Then we all had a snack we were supposed to get in by the end of the day also.  We were constantly stuffed but we walked it off.  I had big plans to have huge numbers of steps per day logged on my Fit-Bit, but of course my charger was in my purse which was stolen so I only was able to track 3 days till it died.  Each of those days we were over 20,000 steps for the day.  That was a good enough excuse for me to eat all that amazing food!  I don't consider myself a foodie, but I sure did enjoy the many different types of food we ate.  The kids were not quite as impressed.  Especially Drew, she is very picky and I'm not sure she ever ingested much more than the bottomless chocolate milk.  She was considered an adult so she got large meals which Mason usually ate because his kid-sized meals weren't enough.  However it worked out, it was amazing food!

When Bree talks about Disney World, this is what she means.  Magic Kingdom.  Our first day at DW was spent here.  Paul did an amazing job of signing us up for excellent Fast-Passes, and then we rope-dropped every morning so it was essentially like have four Fast-Passes a day.  We would rope-drop the most popular ride of the park so we could miss that line.  At Magic Kingdom that ride is the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.  It was a pretty good ride but not nearly the crazy factor the Universal Studios rides had. It was much more Bree's speed.  In fact, she says that was her favorite ride.  We bought the picture package where we could have our picture taken by any of the DW photographers on the street and they would scan our wrist band and it would magically show up in our account somewhere.  That was cool because we got all the pictures they take on the rides and they made an awesome video of us on the Seven Dwarf's ride.  Hopefully is works on here.  We each got to choose our own band color and these worked as our room key, our fast passes were electronically connected so we just scanned them at the rides, and we could also use them to charge things to our room.  DW sure knows how to make it easy on people.  Almost too easy when it comes to spending money.

That first day at Magic Kingdom we stuffed in as much as we possibly could.  But I messed up Paul's meticulous planning almost right off the bat.  He had our time completely planned out, thanks to an awesome app he found.  Each night he would email me a copy of our itinerary so I would also know what was supposed to be happening for the next 15 hours.  I loved it! I think we were supposed to go to Space Mountain after the mine but the Tea Cups are right next to the mine so I made a detour to stop there.  I'm not surprised they weren't on the itinerary, Paul hates the spinning rides.  But you can't go to a Disney park without riding the Tea Cups!  Thankfully that quick detour didn't throw off the rest of our day, and Paul didn't let it bother him too much, outwardly.   Later he admitted he was annoyed that I had already ruined his plans :)  We made it to Space Mountain which Bree totally hated.  She was crying when she got off that one too.  Poor baby.  She didn't like being in the dark like that.  I think the rest of us loved it but I'm not sure you can tell by the look on some of our faces.

Bree found these ears the morning of the first day.  She saw them at a kiosk, grabbed them and ran over to me, without paying.  Oops!  Everything else had been "free" at DW, why not these?  We went back and payed and they were just the perfect set of ears for Miss Bree.  Darcy found Frozen ears and Drew went with the classic Minnie ears with a bow.  Such cuties.  They wore them almost constantly the whole time we were in the parks.  I caught Mason at the hotel with Bree's ears on and got a picture.  I'll use it on him as blackmail later.

That day we also rode Dumbo, the race track, Big Thunder Mountain, Buzz Lightyear Spaceranger Spin, People Mover, Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, Barnstormer, the Carrousel, Pirates of the Caribbean, Hall of Presidents, Its a Small World, Splash Mountain, Journey of the Little Mermaid, and the Haunted Mansion, where Darcy hid her face and bawled the whole way through, starting at the line outside.  I'm a wuss when it comes to scary and that place isn't even scary.  She just talked herself into it being horrible.  Bree was overly brave the whole time just to show her sister what a ninny she was being.  We ate our dinner that day at the Crystal Palace.  It was a buffet of amazing food and the Winnie the Pooh characters visited us at our table.

 
We went back to the Magic Kingdom on Nov. 16th for another full day of fun.  This was a miserably hot day so we tried to find some places to keep cool.  That took us to the Tiki Room and the Country Bear Jamboree.  Both were horrible, outdated, animatronic junk shows but at least they were air conditioned!  That morning we were able to get into the park at a special entrance because we had reservations for breakfast at Cinderella's Castle!  Its what Bree had been looking forward to for months!  It was fun to be one of the only ones in the park, heading toward the castle, and then turning around to see the massive flood of people behind us as they opened the gates.  The breakfast was amazing!  We had pictures taken with Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, Jasmine, and Aurora, my favorite princess growing up.  It was totally magical!  We were also able to convince Mason to finally pose for a picture with a princess!

We also visited the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House, Tam Sawyer's Island, We had our picture taken with Mickey Mouse, Bree and Darcy both had small parts in the production of Enchanted Tales with Belle (Bree was Mrs. Potts, and Darcy was the horse, Philippe), and we rerode the Pirates of the Caribbean, Seven Dwarfs ride, and Splash Mountain.  We ate our lunch at the Pecos Bill Cafe which was of course delicious.  That evening we found ourselves a spot in the main circle in front of Cinderella's castle to watch the festivities.  They started out with a parade and street party where Bree and Darcy were shaking their money makers on the street while Drew and Mason did their best to try to disappear.  They may have been just a tad too old to enjoy the magic of this particular park.  You either need to be under 8 or over 30 I think to really appreciate it.  After the street party there was a Frozen Holiday Wish show at the castle.  After that we had front row seats to the Electrical Parade and then the Wishes Nighttime Spectacular.  That was so cool.  They did so many beautiful things with the castle.  It was a nice evening, just relaxing and being entertained.  Magic Kingdom was the all around favorite park at Disney World of probably just about all of us.  It had all the character rides and places associated with fairy tales.  It is a fun, fun place!  It was so hard to leave!  I'll leave the last half day we spent there for the last post on our trip.