WARNING: We spent a week at Disney so this is a LONG post!!!
We went non-stop for a week but it was so much fun! Hannah got to ride all of the rides that we had talked about beforehand and we had a blast with David & Karen. I wrote a note on Facebook today recapping our week and here's a summary: wake up, eat breakfast, get into the van, drive 6 miles to Disney, take tram to park entrances (unless you're at Magic Kingdom in which case you take the tram and then a non-stroller-friendly ferry to the entrance), go through bag check, go through ticket check, wait in line for rides, eat lunch, watch some shows, wait in some more lines, eat supper, take tram back to parking lot, return to Condo, swim, take a bath and collapse into bed. Repeat for the next four days. Disney is definitely a theme park and the theme is WAITING!!
But like I said, it was so much fun. I loved watching Hannah & Samuel enjoying the rides and the shows as well as meeting a few of the Disney characters. We don't see Dave & Karen as much as we would like to so it was so nice spending time with them (even if it was spent waiting it line 40 minutes or so to meet Tigger & Pooh :-) One evening Karen & I went shopping in Downtown Disney sans husbands and my kids. It's rare for us to spend any time alone just talking so I really enjoyed that as well. Hannah loves David and it was so sweet watching them play Hide 'N Seek in the pool or just watching him carrying her around the park (heartwarming and very helpful for me!)
Here's what we managed to cram in at the parks:
MGM Studios:
Muppet Vision 3D, Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure, Voyage of the Little Mermaid (awesome affects but the Little Mermaid kept getting off-key), Playhouse Disney - Live on Stage (which Samuel thoroughly enjoyed), Beauty & the Beast Live on Stage and Bobby rode the Tower of Terror. This is crazy but we waited 90 minutes to ride Toy Story Midway Mania - but Hannah saw it on our Disney video and I had told her we would ride it. The ride was "broken" for 2 hours so there was a long long line when they got it back up and running. The wait wasn't too bad though b/c we were inside and there was a huge talking Potato Head that told jokes.
Magic Kingdom:
Peter Pan's Flight, Cinderella's Golden Carousel, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Mad Tea Party (which just about made me lose the lunch that I had just finished. Not our brightest idea.), Hannah & Bobby rode the Barnstormer roller coaster, we watched the Monsters Inc, Laugh show, we had our picture taken with Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger AND Hannah had her picture taken with the Disney Princesses. I had wanted to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean ride with Karen but I ended up staying home Friday while the rest of the group finished M.K. I had also wanted to do Stitch's Great Escape and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin but it was too crowded and there just wasn't enough time to do everything.
Animal Kingdom:
It's Tough to Be a Bug 3D show, a quick glimpse of the Tree of Life, we went on an awesome safari where we were so close to some of the animals we could have touched them had it been allowed. We also walked through a couple of trails were we saw giant fruit bats, a Komodo dragon, tapirs, tigers, gorillas, birds, fish and hippos. Hannah says to my mom, "And Moto-Moto (the hippo) was in a tank ALL by himself Granny!" While everyone else went to ride some roller coasters I took the kids to Camp Mickey and Minnie where they had their pictures taken with Mickey, Daisy and Goofy. We met back up and finished the day with Finding Nemo the Musical.
Epcot:
The group finished Magic Kingdom Friday morning and then we all spent the rest of the day at Epcot. We had supper in Japan (where Dave wanted to order chicken but we made fun of him until he relented and ordered something different. I also want to thank Josh for teaching us how to use chopsticks so I wasn't stuck using a fork while everyone around me used their c.sticks.) After supper we just walked around looking at the flower gardens and amazing topiaries. We did Turtle Talk with Crush as well as another Nemo ride. Their aquariums are awesome and they have two manatee's that they've rescued from boat wrecks. While we were looking at the fish and dolphins Hannah explained to Karen (who has a Masters in Marine Biology) that dolphins have one nostril and she has two. Smart little girl!!
Each evening I checked things off on our maps that we had done that day. I constantly referred to them while writing this otherwise I definitely could not have remembered everything we did!
Here are some of my favorite pictures...
We went non-stop for a week but it was so much fun! Hannah got to ride all of the rides that we had talked about beforehand and we had a blast with David & Karen. I wrote a note on Facebook today recapping our week and here's a summary: wake up, eat breakfast, get into the van, drive 6 miles to Disney, take tram to park entrances (unless you're at Magic Kingdom in which case you take the tram and then a non-stroller-friendly ferry to the entrance), go through bag check, go through ticket check, wait in line for rides, eat lunch, watch some shows, wait in some more lines, eat supper, take tram back to parking lot, return to Condo, swim, take a bath and collapse into bed. Repeat for the next four days. Disney is definitely a theme park and the theme is WAITING!!
But like I said, it was so much fun. I loved watching Hannah & Samuel enjoying the rides and the shows as well as meeting a few of the Disney characters. We don't see Dave & Karen as much as we would like to so it was so nice spending time with them (even if it was spent waiting it line 40 minutes or so to meet Tigger & Pooh :-) One evening Karen & I went shopping in Downtown Disney sans husbands and my kids. It's rare for us to spend any time alone just talking so I really enjoyed that as well. Hannah loves David and it was so sweet watching them play Hide 'N Seek in the pool or just watching him carrying her around the park (heartwarming and very helpful for me!)
Here's what we managed to cram in at the parks:
MGM Studios:
Muppet Vision 3D, Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure, Voyage of the Little Mermaid (awesome affects but the Little Mermaid kept getting off-key), Playhouse Disney - Live on Stage (which Samuel thoroughly enjoyed), Beauty & the Beast Live on Stage and Bobby rode the Tower of Terror. This is crazy but we waited 90 minutes to ride Toy Story Midway Mania - but Hannah saw it on our Disney video and I had told her we would ride it. The ride was "broken" for 2 hours so there was a long long line when they got it back up and running. The wait wasn't too bad though b/c we were inside and there was a huge talking Potato Head that told jokes.
Magic Kingdom:
Peter Pan's Flight, Cinderella's Golden Carousel, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Mad Tea Party (which just about made me lose the lunch that I had just finished. Not our brightest idea.), Hannah & Bobby rode the Barnstormer roller coaster, we watched the Monsters Inc, Laugh show, we had our picture taken with Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger AND Hannah had her picture taken with the Disney Princesses. I had wanted to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean ride with Karen but I ended up staying home Friday while the rest of the group finished M.K. I had also wanted to do Stitch's Great Escape and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin but it was too crowded and there just wasn't enough time to do everything.
Animal Kingdom:
It's Tough to Be a Bug 3D show, a quick glimpse of the Tree of Life, we went on an awesome safari where we were so close to some of the animals we could have touched them had it been allowed. We also walked through a couple of trails were we saw giant fruit bats, a Komodo dragon, tapirs, tigers, gorillas, birds, fish and hippos. Hannah says to my mom, "And Moto-Moto (the hippo) was in a tank ALL by himself Granny!" While everyone else went to ride some roller coasters I took the kids to Camp Mickey and Minnie where they had their pictures taken with Mickey, Daisy and Goofy. We met back up and finished the day with Finding Nemo the Musical.
Epcot:
The group finished Magic Kingdom Friday morning and then we all spent the rest of the day at Epcot. We had supper in Japan (where Dave wanted to order chicken but we made fun of him until he relented and ordered something different. I also want to thank Josh for teaching us how to use chopsticks so I wasn't stuck using a fork while everyone around me used their c.sticks.) After supper we just walked around looking at the flower gardens and amazing topiaries. We did Turtle Talk with Crush as well as another Nemo ride. Their aquariums are awesome and they have two manatee's that they've rescued from boat wrecks. While we were looking at the fish and dolphins Hannah explained to Karen (who has a Masters in Marine Biology) that dolphins have one nostril and she has two. Smart little girl!!
Each evening I checked things off on our maps that we had done that day. I constantly referred to them while writing this otherwise I definitely could not have remembered everything we did!
Here are some of my favorite pictures...
No comments:
Post a Comment