Disney Day 5

Knowing this was our last day we knew wanted to hit it hard or a better way to say this is that we wanted to make the most of the day.  We arrived at the Magic Kingdom before the park opened (we were so proud of ourselves).  They do a fun welcome dance and song right as the park is opening.  As you are walking down Main Street all the store people are outside waving and telling you good morning.  It was so neat and so welcoming.  I probably had just as big a smile on my face as Paige (I love it when people smile and say hello, I guess it is the little things).  All the books say hit Dumbo early and that is just what we were going to do.  Dumbo had other plans and was not open right away so we opted out of that.  The rest of the day was spent flittering around picking the rides we wanted to ride one more time.  We pretty much followed the same route that we did on our first day.  We rode the Many Adventures of Pooh many times, the Carpets many times, all the other fun rides.  One of the best parts was no lines!  Maybe it is just the timing we planned, but we would not wait in a line if it was longer than 20 minutes.  Shoot, we wouldn't wait in a line at all at Small World.  I guess it was because we knew there wouldn't be a line later on.

One fun thing we got to do was go by the Christmas store (we needed to get our vacation Christmas ornaments!).  We must have hit it at the right time because the sweet store attendant let Paige decorate one of their Christmas trees.  They put a nice sign up saying it was decorated by her and she got a little postcard and ornament from the experience.

We took our normal afternoon break and then it was back to the park until past 11 pm.  Once again, poor Paige konked out before we left.  We were able to do some shopping while she slept.

Other fun things -

It only rained once during our trip and it was on this day.  We were in Tomorrowland so we hopped on over to the People Mover.  Wouldn't you know it, the People Mover got stuck/stopped.  Not a problem!  We were outside watching the rain on a covered ride.

We got to meet Paige's favorite princess, Aierl, and Eric.  While visiting with them we talked about dogs.  Yes, we talked about Ellie and Madi and they told us about their dog Max.  I love how interactive the characters are.  They try to relate and do they do a great job.  Belle even asked what Paige's favorite book was and told her she needed to keep reading.

The entire trip was so wonderful!  I know all 3 of us had a great time.  Brad even asked me before we left when we were coming back again.  But, Monday came and it was time to hit the road back home to reality! 

Disney Day 4

It was off to Hollywood Studios for Day 4.  It had been a long while since we had been here and we didn't really know what to expect.  The one thing we did know was first thing get your fastpass for the Toy Story ride.  And that is what we did!  Brad scooted on to the ride while Paige and I meandered around.  He had to wait a few minutes to actually get the fastpass to get the time we wanted because we were planning around our lunch time.  When we got there at 9 am (an hour after the park opened for Magic Hours which we missed) and the fastpass time was 12:30 pm.  He was able to get the 12:50 time by waiting just a little bit and only experienced a little lip service from the hired help (I am not a big fan of the Toy Story workers - they gave him attitude then and then gave us attitude when we rode the ride).

To be honest, it is kind of hard to describe this day.  We were busy but it was filled with shows.  We got to ride the Great Movie ride, see Daisy and Donald, watch Beauty and the Beast (kind of like a Broadway show), and see The Little Mermaid - twice.  Maybe it was because we went to The Little Mermaid show twice, but it was my favorite.  We also saw the Muppets and the Disney Junior show.

We had lunch at a yummy place, Mama Melrose's, where we got VIP passes to Fantasmic.  I am glad we did it this way because we are not up for waiting for shows that long.  The VIP passes gave you designated seating at the Fantasmic show.  This way you didn't have to get there hours in advance.  Poor Paige fell asleep during the show and was gone for the night at 9:45 pm.  Luckily we did not have a long trip back, just an easy boat ride to the hotel!

*Sorry for the lack of pictures.  We didn't take that many since we were mainly seeing shows and I figure I have bored you enough with all the pics.

Disney Day 3

This was intended to be a low key day where we didn't have to rush anywhere or do anything and for the most part it was.

Our day started with a character breakfast at Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club hotel.  To be honest, this was probably the worst service we received all week.  Disney is known for their stellar service and this was subpar.  The food however was great.  It was a buffet and the buffet was filled with yummy food for all.

Gotta love the Mickey waffles!

This breakfast had Minnie, Donald and Goofy.  She enjoyed seeing all three.  It makes me laugh thinking back because I always felt the need to talk to the characters.  I thought I needed to tell them something Paige liked about them or just a story about themselves from either their show (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) or their movie.  We told Donald about "Donald of the Desert" and Daisy about how she was on Paige's crocs and how they didn't have a Donald available (that is why he wasn't on the other croc).  I know these characters had to think I was crazy but it seemed to work.

I guess we all need to take time to stop and smell the flowers.

Ready to go back out.  She cracked me up doing this (on more than one occasion).  She would go and put herself in the stroller and tell us she was ready to go.  This time she happened to be "ready" with no shoes.  Silly girl!

After breakfast we went back to the hotel and just chilled until early afternoon.  From there we headed over to Epcot.  Go figure Paige fell asleep on the boat ride over and all through park for about 2 hours.  This gave us time to stroll through the World Showcase and Brad got to ride Mission Space.  The plan was to stay at Epcot and head back early so we would be rested up for the remainder of the trip, but by dinner time Paige was ready to go back and "ride Buzz" and "ride Pooh".  Being the suckers that we are we said, ok and took the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom to ride a couple of rides.  She loved getting to ride the monorail and sang "All the Aboard the Choo Choo Train" (Disney channel people will know the song) almost the entire way there.  It is a good thing there weren't many people in the cabin with us.  We decided it would be fun to take the monorail back and walk through Epcot one last time.  She wanted to stop and see more characters (and of course we said yes) and this put us back at our hotel right at 10 pm.  So much for the uneventful day!

One neat thing we got to experience was the Extra Magic Hours at Epcot.  We had wondered how they worked and how they kept non-resort people off the rides and out of the park.  In case you didn't know, here is what they do - you have to show your room key to get in the park if you enter during the Extra Magic Hours.  Then you have to show it again when you go to get on a ride or for us, get in the character line.  Pretty interesting!

 

Disney Day 2

Our next stop was the Animal Kingdom.  This was our first time here and we didn't really know what to expect.  We arrived pretty much when the park opened and had our semi-plan for the day.

First was the safari!  This was another Daddy/Paige ride as they do not advise pregnant women to ride this.  I am not really sure why I couldn't do this one, but we respected Disney's warning. 

From here, I will let the pictures do the talking -

Checking out some neat fish

Rafiki from the Lion King - she actually wanted to go see him.

Enjoying a mid-morning snack

Fun train ride to the closed petting zoo.  We thought she would like the petting zoo and once we got there we found out it was closed.  Sad!

Playing on the Boneyard Playground

They have a neat picture place by the Lion King show where you can wait to see Mickey and friends.  Paige actually wanted to wait so we did.  I am glad we didn't push the characters since she wasn't sure about them, but I am glad she gradually warmed up to them.  She was too cute wanting to go see the characters and she waited pretty well in the lines.

Thumper!

So happy to finally see Goofy

Enjoying a lemonade slush with our paper straws.  Animal Kingdom only does paper straws.  I guessing this is so if the animals got a hold of one they could it eat and be ok.

Review of Animal Kingdom - not as great as I thought.  Not really the best place for kids under 2.  They had a few things to do but not many.  I think we were all pretty hot and tired by the time we left.  We did get to see the neat Lion King show (which I enjoyed). 

While all of our apps on the phone said this was a low crowd day, it sure didn't seem like it.  We decided the paths are narrower and there really aren't as many paths so you are crammed going anywhere, crowd or no crowd.  I think we will go back, but I think we will wait until Paige is tall enough to do the big-kid rides.

After resting we headed back to the Magic Kingdom and had another wonderful evening!  We pretty much let Paige run the show and let her tell us where she wanted to go.  We spent most of our time in FantasyLand and riding Buzz.  The crowds were so great - there were none!  We were able to walk right up to most of the rides and just hop on.

This what happens when you ask Paige to look at the camera...it just doesn't happen.

Crystal Palace Lunch

Looking back over our pictures at the Crystal Palace for lunch on our first day I realized these really captured Paige's happiness and excitement.  There a bunch of pictures but I just couldn't decide and narrow it down.  So, here you go...

My water bottle became her water bottle (in the end it was fine because that meant it was one less cup to keep up with).

She sees Pooh!

Pooh is here to visit us!

Well, Hello Eoerye

Are you writing anything good, Piglet?

It may take some zooming - but you will see the biggest and happiest look on her face!

Last but not least, Tigger! (who doesn't get excited about Tigger, right?)

Disney Day 1

Our first day we decided to go all out and go to the Magic Kingdom.  It was wonderful!!!!

To see the expression on Paige's face and hear the excitement in her voice when we say Cinderella's castle was priceless.  She absolutely loved it.

Our first stop was Dumbo.  This is a very popular ride for kids and there is no fast pass so the trick is to get it done and get it done early.

We roamed through the rest of FantasyLand until lunch time.

I am a huge tea cup fan, Brad not so much.  So, when Paige said she wanted to go I was all about it!  We ended up not twirling ourselves around at all but it was still fun!  And the 5 minute wait was even better!

The first of many times of riding the Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (probably her favorite ride).  This is a great kids ride.  There are a lot of fun scenes and the ride moves right along with it, including the bouncing with the bouncy Tigger.  Another side note about Pooh - if you don't have a FastPass there are activities for the kids to do along the way making your wait a little bit better.  We, however, used a FastPass each time except 1 time because there wasn't a long wait.  FastPass is the way to do everything!!!

Another favorite - Small World - another short wait!  P loved this and still sings the song for us...not sure how good that is - ha!

Sportin' the sunglasses.  The girl loved her some sunglasses!!

Then it was off to the Crystal Palace for lunch with Winnie the Pooh and friends.  This lunch was great!  I will do a separate post with pictures, but it was a great opporunity to cool off during the middle of the day.  We also enjoyed eating the bigger lunch so we weren't as hungry later in the day and advanced dining reservations are must for something like this.  After lunch we headed back to the hotel for a break and after a few hours of rejuvination we were ready to go.

Heading back after lunch



We started with AdventureLand this time and worked our way around to the other areas of the park we hadn't seen.  Daddy took Paige on the Pirates of the Carribean.  I think it scared her a little bit but she was so proud of herself when she got off.  She told him, "Daddy, I did it!".  Since we weren't sure how crazy she was about the characters we focused our time on rides and it worked pretty well.  By the end of the night we had ridden everything we wanted to and then some.  She was brave and did the Haunted Mansion (which we walked right up to and had NO wait), she loved the train ride around the park, and then there was Buzz.  The Buzz Lightyear ride is in TomorrowLand and I think we all 3 loved it.

Jungle Boat Cruise

Flying Carpets - another favorite!  Like Dumbo but can fit more people in/on the carpet.  The front seat can move the carpet up and down.  As you can tell I wasn't too good at it...seeing as how we are the lowest carpet out there.

Taking time to dance

So, there is the nightly parade.  Maybe it is where we live, but we are just not too into Disney parades.  Maybe it is because they don't throw anything at as, who knows!  Anyway, we got trapped, if you will, and couldn't get back to FantasyLand to ride more rides so we watched the parade instead.  This was probably a good thing because we were all tuckered out and pretty much done for the night by the end of the parade.

Heading on back after an AWESOME first day!!