Day Eight to Ten (Finished! :D)

June 11th

Got a really late start today and it was so blissful!  :)  We got to the Magic Kingdom at 11:30am in the 91F heat it was great to just try to hit some indoor places!

We toured through the "Swiss Family Treehouse" and aside from the fact I am a heights baby, it was so cool!  The "house" was layered through a large tree with living and sleeping space for everyone throughout.  The kitchen area was particularly interesting to me as they seemed to have all the amenities there, even running water.  I enjoyed seeing how they lived.  (in fiction)  The boys loved seeing what an adventure it would be to live in a tree.  :)  I told them that long term might be less fun, but for the time it was pretty cool.

We walked over to the "Pirates of the Caribbean" but they were broken down.  M was so sad.  He finally got to watch most of the movies so he really wanted to go on the ride, but you can't control the fact it was broken.  (I was actually impressed with how very little they had to close rides for breakdowns)

Stitch's Great Escape was a great little romp through trying to make Stitch stay in containment.  He of course escaped and it was really neat how it all was so interactive.  The supports on your shoulders bounced as you heard him saying "boing, boing" and then there was wind blowing your hair as he "tickled" you.  The lasers shot at him as he "spit" water at you.

The People Mover was just a little ride around the upper portions of Tomorrowland.  We enjoyed the moving walkway that moved right up a ramp.  The ride itself was entertaining and we got a good view of the available rides.

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger was super fun.  The line had some interactive games for the kids and the ride itself was a big arcade type thing where you had to shoot these lasers at different targets.  Dh and I rode with M, the other two had their own car.  M loved shooting and so did dh...he was sure he had to double (at least) the other boys' scores (its the little boy in a big body thing again Cassi!) so I "helped" him by taking my steering job really seriously...totally not moving and turning alot...Ok, maybe I did, and he may have told me to smarten up a few times...but M loved it!  :)  He still kicked some major butt so he was happy.

The Monster's Inc Laugh Floor might have been one of the funniest things I have EVER seen.  They did it all by improv using people out of the audience as parts of their routine.  When K was "Randall" he was so surprised.  :)  They said that Randall was an evil monster and he liked to disappear.  K just sat there smiling...he was after all on screen.  Then they were like, "Just because he has his seat belt on (he had his camera strap on) doesn't make him any less evil...he likes to disappear."  "Disappear Randall.  Disappear."  Then K figured out he was supposed to disappear.  He ducked down and we all had a good laugh.  The jokes were so fun and the whole show was amazing.

I loved the way the brooms were dumping the flowers out of the buckets.

Space Mountain was next.  I was a super mom again and went on.  It was so dark, jerky and very "thrilling".  I was worried the whole time that M would fall out.  He just made the height requirements so I was not confident in the restraints.  The boys loved it, but I swore no more rollercoasters for this Momma. 

We took them over to the Tomorrowland Speedway and they each got their chance at driving.  Dh and I each got to go with a boy and we enjoyed a jerky and somewhat unsteady ride the whole way.  :)  The boys loved it though.

We ate at Cosmic Ray's it was a yummy little sandwich shop with totally divine A/C!  (the food could have been total crap and I would have liked it just for the A/C!)

Snow Whites Scary Adventure and Winnie the Pooh's Adventure were both great little kid rides.  We enjoyed some more fake screaming on both.  I am sure we are annoying to others, but we amuse ourselves!

Mickey's PhilharMagic was another 3D adventure.  Again I had to marvel at the amazing effects.  I love the music of Disney as well so it was a great one for me.  The boys laughed so hard at Donald Duck.  He is so classic.

We couldn't miss "It's A Small World" because it is a classic.  M sang along the whole time. 

The boys took the time to get in a tea cup on the "Mad Tea Party".  I didn't want to get sick this close to dinner...gotta eat well right?!

On to our reservations.  We made a reservation for a Luau at the Polynesian Resort.  We were pretty excited because we heard it was wonderful. 

We were jealous of their beach until we found out they pay almost double just to have that beach and the rooms were pretty run down.  We did see that they had beach movies every night though...

We got there a half hour early because we were told we had to be there, but found out we were sitting on the ground to be seated, you just had to check in that early...so here is my poor G...he was a little board.

(the top photo and the bottom one were taken by my K)

Super yummy non-stop food.  They had this coconut milk bread that was so divine.  The ribs were a big hit with my K too, he loves ribs.

We got back to our resort and had a great sleep.

June 12th

Today is our last day and we only have a bit of the Hollywood Studios left.  Whew!  It is still Star Wars Weekends so there is a tonne of people again.  It is 95 today (35C) and it is sort of sticky...well, lots sticky.

We went to Beauty and the Beast.  Dh loves the movie so he wanted to see it.  It was very well done and the singers were very talented.

The Tower of Terror was done by Dh, M and G.  K wanted to sit that one out.  (and we already established my awesomness as a mom...) They loved it and were excited.  "It lifts you right out of your seat Mom!"

I was a mean mom and didn't let M do the Rockin' Rollercoaster so only Dh, G and K got to go on it.  I didn't want M to fall out or be damaged from the high speeds.  The boys all were thrilled with the ride.  It apparently accelerates super fast and keeps it up the whole time.

We did the Narnia:Prince Caspian thing.  We were disappointed in it.  We were all excited to do it, we love the Narnia movies and books, but the attraction was basically a glorified trailer for the movie.  Sad for us.

We were back at the hotel at 3:30pm.  We ate at our hotel again at Boatworks (we really enjoyed it) and swam before bed.

We had to do bed early because it was a really early rise for us.  3:30am!  (that was 1:30am in our home city)  We flew in and finally got home at 9:00pm  (had to stop and buy a pink .22 gun for me! :D)  So we had been up for a long day.

Our trip was amazing and we have many memories to treasure forever.  Thanks for coming with me as I remember them.

Cheers

Day Seven and Eight

June 9th

Yesterday I started to develop some little bumps on my arms, and this morning they have turned into a blister-like rash.  It itches like crazy and I am wondering if I should get it checked.  (later I decided not to, but in the morning I was very unsure)

We traveled to Magic Kingdom for our adventure today.

I had read that if you take the railroad around the park you had a great view of all the places to visit.  turns out that was WRONG!  :)  We enjoyed the ride, and found out that if we caught the train just right it saved us time.  (but always saved us walking!)  We jumped off at Frontierland and grabbed fast passes to Splash Mountain.  The boys were pretty excited, me?  not so much because silly Mommy wore a white shirt!  :)

We very quickly discovered that Magic Kingdom is very busy, much busier than the other two parks we had been to, but that the lines moved quicker.  We liked that.

As we waited to get onto splash mountain, we saw that Big Thunder Mountain was a fairly short line so we hopped in.  Now, I said before that I am not a big fan of rollercoasters.  Do you see how much I sacrificed for my boys?!  :O  I told them that I was going to scream really loud and then cry like a baby!  It was a "fun" little rollercoaster and dh enjoyed rubbing it in that I held onto the "Oh, Crap!" bar so hard.

Tom Sawyer Island was fun.  It had some signs around that were (misspelled - gasp - says my K who is the spelling police!) pretty funny and fun attractions.  This duck was checking out all the people and hoping for a handout...

After we went over to Splash Mountain. (pretend I said that super excited and happy...sarcastically...)  Another rollercoaster, that was wet...and me in a white shirt that doesn't like rollercoasters... :)

It was a fun little ride through a story about Brer Rabbit.  I enjoyed that part!  Lucky all three boys sat in the front seat, not so lucky was the part that they are short...and we aren't!  At the last drop we all thought we were good to go because we weren't really all that wet...needless to say, the last drop served it purpose to get us TOTALLY wet! 

After, on our way to the Haunted Mansion we caught the "Celebrate A Dream Come True" parade.  The parade was wonderful and it was a great time.  (I just wondered at the message it was sending.  It was all in fun and the kids loved it.  I think that my dreams are bigger than going to Disney...and meeting Mickey Mouse...Just one problem I had.  I loved my time there, and I have always wanted to go there, but all my dreams were not fulfilled with that trip.)

The Haunted Mansion was cool.  There were small children in there that really should not have been there, crying and not happy.  M was concerned asking if they were robots, but then got really into it fake screaming along with us.  The ride broke down a bit and we wondered if we would have to walk out, but they got it going again.

At lunch we found out that the chocolate cake was wonderful! 

I had been taking photos of the castle, trying to get one without people in it and finally got one!  Yay!  It was pretty tricky with so many people walking around.  I am super excited that we didn't go later in the year when it was REALLY busy.

We wanted to check out the Jungle Cruise.  We had heard it was pretty funny.  As we were waiting in line the PA system would come on and there would be funny little announcements like:
"Can I have your attention please? ..... (long pause) ....Thank you."
"Can I have your attention please? .....All line cutters will have their scissors confiscated....Thank you."

We laughed pretty hard.  It kept you pretty entertained.  The ride was funny too.  The tour guide was great with some pretty dry jokes that kept us groaning the whole ride.

We rode the Monorail to Epcot for dinner.

As we walked into the park we found a nice SHORT line on a ride that had previously been REALLY long.  It was great.  It took you on a really basic tour of history.  On the ride down you could answer some questions and it custom made a story staring you!  M and I were in a car together and had a great giggle over our story.

We ate at La Hacienda for dinner.  It was really yummy Mexican food.

On our way out, M finally got his Mickey hands he wanted for three days.  He was super excited to have them.  G got his necklace and his Marionette that he had been wanting.

I got some Aloe with Solarcane for my poor arms.  Instant relief!

I have some wicked blisters on my feet, but I popped those puppies and now I am feeling some relief from that as well.  Good to go on for tomorrow!  Found out that today was 90F with 63% humidity.

June 10th

G really wanted to do Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekend.  There were massive amounts of people in the park but luckily they were there to see the Star Wars things and not so much the rides so the lines were pretty fast moving.

We did the Great Movie Ride first.  It was fun with the different movies in it.  Our "guide" got out and was "blown up" in a gun fight.  We got "hijacked" by another guide who got turned into a skeleton and our other guide returned.  It was fun.

On our way we saw a few places that had these scenes painted on giant walls that looked as if the park was bigger and went on further than it did.  Very well done.

The studio backlot tour was great.  The line wound through a storage area with lots of props.  It was fun to guess which movie it came from.

See, topiaries all over...

We liked the giant mickey ears on the water tower.

Can you tell me what movie this is from?

We went to the Lights, Motors, Action show.  That was fun to see all the amazing drivers that could stunt drive so well.

Honey I Shrunk The Kids were some of the funniest movies we have watched, so when we found the set that had the play area, the boys were super excited!

It was great to take a break and play for a bit.

Muppet Vision 3D was so cool.

I LOVED the set.  You walked into the theater that is from the classic show.  I loved the real life and 3D blend.  The Old Guys were up in a balcony interacting with the screen, later in the show one of the characters came out of a side door and chatted with us.  Still an amazing 3D experience.  I was loving the really awesome effects they had.

Indiana Jones was the last show we took in.  It was a great "review" of the show and the stunts were well done.

We went back to the hotel and went to the pool in the French Quarter.  It was fun but not spectacular.  It was nice to cool off after the day though, 90F today with 80% humidity.  It was getting pretty hot.

We ate at our restaurant at our hotel called "Boatworks".  It was delish southern cooking.  The waiter was amazing, he was the first one we have had that actually deserved the tip we gave him. 


Two more days left...
Cheers

Day Six

I am posting a few of these a day to get it done.  I am enjoying "re-living" this, so I hope you enjoy reading it.

June 8th

Epcot today again.  We wanted to hit the rest of the rides and do the tour of the countries.

We hit The Seas with Nemo and Friends.  It was a very fast moving line with the ride cars constantly moving like a conveyor belt on a moving walkway.  This was our first experience with these, but found out it was common on a few rides.  There was a fun little video that showed where Nemo hides and Marlin goes looking for him.  You get to see a few of the favorite characters and see a few real fish as well.  (you are under a large tank at the end)

When we were finished we moved upstairs and walked through many tanks of fish.  They were amazingly beautiful.  We checked out some Manatee's that had been saved after being pretty mangled from some boat propellers.  They were being fed when we came in.  It was pretty cool.  They just threw in some large lettuce heads and the Manatee's ate them whole.  They really are just the "cows of the seas".

We wanted to check out "Soarin" so we got fast pass @ 12 (the line was over 90 min for standby) and were to come back at 7pm!  :)  Good thing they have them.

While we were in that building we went to MY favorite part of the whole trip...

Disney has some amazing greenhouses...did you know that?  They do amazing things with hydroponics and aquaculture.  It was so cool to see how much they do in these little places.  We really wanted to take the tour and learn more, but the price was obscene...over $100 for our family for an hour tour!  So I contented myself with buying a book...(we all know I like books)

We would really love to build a greenhouse and grow our own food (all of it if we can).  This would be another way to do it and save lots of space.

The Journey into Imagination with Figment was a great little ride.  It takes you on a little ride with video(ish) story along the way.  We did hit a "smell" place and of course the couldn't make us smell roses, we got a huge blast of skunk!  :)

Then we took our tour of the "world".

It was over 91 degrees F today (33C) so we wanted to start somewhere we could go in and use the A/C!  On to Mexico.  They had a nice little marketplace in the center of a pyramid.  It was pretty close to the ones we actually visited in central Mexico.  Dh loved the hot sauce selection!    They had a nice little ride that made me a bit nostalgic for the "old" show every Sunday night, "Walt Disney World" and they showed cartoons, old movies and whatnot.  Anyway, this ride had Donald Duck and the 3 Caballeros.  Classic.  The boys laughed so hard.  Dh and I enjoyed it just as much.  It was a nice little boat ride with classic cartoons...what more could I ask for?!

On to Norway where we rode a ride called Malstrom.  Very mild up and down waterfalls.  We pretended that we were so scared.  We think that is funny.  I was screaming my way down a waterfall and realized it could sound as if I was really scared.  :)

China had a great show in 360 degrees.  There was a huge circular screen where they showed a movie about china. 

Germany had a whole pile of beer shops...needless to say, we went through there really fast!  :)

Italy was a stop for food.  We ate at Tutto Italia Ristorante.  The food was yummy, but not spectacular, until dessert...

Sad I know, but the best part was that.  The tips are killing us now.  We were supposed to give $30 for this meal.  With the super inflated prices the tips are outrageous!  ($20 - $40 per meal)

Sorry to say but we bypassed "The American Adventure".  We have been to the states (and both lived there) so many times it was kind of repetitive for us.  Sad I know.

Japan was next.  I love Japanese style gardening and they had a beautiful garden.  Really wonderful shop too.  We browsed and found some things we can't get at our favorite import store in Calgary (T&T Market).  By this time my poor feet were really rebelling with the humidity by making some huge blisters.  Dh found me some amazing looking "Shiatsu" style shoe pads.  Massage while I walk...SCORE!  Sad though, I couldn't use them my blisters were so bad by then it just hurt.

We stopped in Morocco again because poor dh loved my henna so much he wanted one too.  :)  The boys except for K wanted one too.

M picked "Faith" for his ankle.

G managed to find a dragon type one called "Strength"

Dh got "goal" on his arm.  They were all happy to have some. 

We took a boat back across and made our "Soarin" tickets.  The one side of rides broke down and as we were waiting for our turn on the other side, I started to feel sick from the heat so I had to sit it out.  The rest of them loved the ride though, said it was amazing.

We stayed for Illuminations fireworks tonight.  They used 3000 tonnes of Kerosene every night burning all the fire and over 1000 fireworks.  All for a 15 min show! 

They were beautiful and it was nice to watch.

The transport was obscene though.  So many people were making it back to their hotel that the buses were super crowded, I was movin pretty slow so it was me holding them up too.

Tomorrow is more...
Cheers

Days Four and Five

June 5th

Now, because we only bought a 7 day park hopper, and we were staying 8 days we waited to start till the Monday.  You can use all 7 days however you want to, but we wanted them to be consecutive. 

We started our adventure in Animal Kingdom.  We enjoy doing the animal thing, the zoo is one of our favorite places, so we knew we would enjoy this one alot.

As you walk in you see the big "Tree of Life" off in the distance but you get to walk through these lovely gardens with animals in them first.  We spent alot of time with the birds.  They were all so exotic and beautiful.

First I should mention, lots of the rides and attractions had interactive places in line to make it less boring to wait.  I really enjoyed that.

We walked around for a bit and found the ride that G really wanted to go on.  He loves all things Dinosaur and Dragon so we had to hit the "Dinosaur" rollercoaster/adventure ride.  It was pretty fun.  They took you into a little room and showed you a short video, you were going back in time to save a dino before the meteor hit.  BUT beware, there were lots of Carnator's and you didn't want to be caught by them!  The ride was fast paced, twisting and turning through the dark where every once in a while a dino would come out and try to "eat you".  We had fun.

After finishing the ride we decided we wanted to do the safari.  The sign said 20 min wait so we hopped in.  After the first few bends we realized it was going to be longer...but 3 hours was WAY longer than we thought.  It was the only line we waited in that was so inconsiderate.  The day was hot (96F - 36C) with a really high humidity (57%) so we were all hot and tired.  There were many line cutters.  I got so frustrated I finally lined us all up and just took up the whole line, often shoving back when they tried to cut. 

LUCKY, the ride was really great.

We travelled in a large open air truck like the one below.

They took us on a tour showing us lots of exotic animals.  Many I have seen in the zoo, but it was interesting to see them without bars and fences.

We took in the first 3D show we saw there.  It was "A Bugs Life" in the roots of the Tree of Life.  We walked down and looked at all the animals carved into the tree.  They were wonderfully done.  Waited in line for a couple min (all the 3D movies were short lines) and got into the theater.  The movie was amazing.  There were bugs that shot acid (water) at you, bugs that ran along the back of the chair (rollers in the seats), bugs that flew by your hair (wind machines) and more.  The 3D popped right out at you.  It was a really fun movie.

The boys really wanted to take in the "Everest" rollercoaster.  Once upon a time I actually liked rollercoasters, but now, I really hate them!  So they did the coaster by themselves.  They loved it, even my little M really enjoyed himself.

We took in a wonderful show called "Flights of Wonder".  We didn't know what it was, only that they had misting fans in the waiting area and we were HOT!  So we stood there and waited for the show to start.  So glad we did.  It was a fabulous show.

There were birds aplenty flying around and the show was so fun.  The premise was that this guy lost his tour group (us) and was going to take us to a different show.  There was a bird that stole his tour group flag so he had to stay.  We find out he is scared of birds when a flock of chickens come out and chase him around the stage.  He finally gets brave and feeds a bird...

...then decides he wants to HOLD a bird.  A baby bird on his finger.  The woman says she has a baby bird, but he doesn't want to hold it.  He says, he does so she calls it out.  Out comes this HUGE condor!  It was so stinking funny.  He of course runs away and hides.  Through the show you get to see and take photos of some amazing birds that they are training and studying.

This bird had learned 7 different songs and sang a few for us.  It was amazing and funny all at the same time.  (the three bird photos above are from my son K, I didn't take any during that show)
After we finished this show we went on to our dinner at a place called Tuskers.  It was a wonderful Indian inspired buffet that was delish.  If we didn't have our dining plan the total of the meal would have been $125 for our family!

On our way out of the park we bought a misting fan for tomorrow.  I wanted to have some relief from the huge heat/humidity.  ($17 for it though!)

When we got back to the hotel I realized I still hadn't taken a picture of our hotel room, so here is everyone "relaxing"  (or being dead on the bed as we call it).

June 7th

We went back to the Animal Kingdom because we didn't get to do the ONE thing we wanted to do...see "The Festival of the Lion King".  We had heard it was wonderful so we really wanted to go.  After waiting for the next show to start, we piled in.  We had a woman sit in behind us and complain (loudly so we could hear) that she hated it when tall people thought they had a right to sit anywhere they chose.  It was annoying, I am tall, dh is tall and my kids are tall...where would you like us to sit?  We sat all the way on the edge so we wouldn't be in the way of the stage.  So, all the shows after we just sat where we wanted to, no matter what someone wouldn't be able to see.  :)  The show was AMAZING!  I didn't get any photos because it was AMAZING!  The acrobatics were so well done, the costumes were so colorful and beautiful.  The singing was well done and fun.  The sets were very well done and interactive.  We loved the whole thing.  Part way through M looked over to see a "monkey" sitting beside him.  The man wanted him to give him 5 and he did, but then scooted over as far as he could into me!  :)  The show was so wonderful and everyone agreed it was one of the best ones we had seen so far.

After we got out we realized that we just wanted to go on to our next park so we hopped on the bus and went to Epcot. 

We decided to take in the rides and entertainment first, then go on to the countries tomorrow.

As I said before, the topiaries were amazing.  The boys especially loved the characters from "Cars".  They were big and beautiful.

We went on a slow moving show called "Ellen's Energy Adventure".  She is always so funny, but this was a great "dream" all about how she learns about energy.  Bill Nye takes her on an adventure.  We go along for the ride through dino land, then later get to watch a video of their other adventures.  Very cool.

Mission Space was next because we had fast passed it.  We loved being able to fast pass certain rides because the wait time was WAY less that way for us.  We got to be on the "Orange Team" and "go into" space.  We loved the adventure.  (although I learned I still hate heights, even when they are fake...and K learned that going into space makes him motion sick.  It was the only ride he got sick on!  :D)

We then took in another 3D film that simulates and teaches you about storms.

Captain EO had to be done because our kids didn't really know who Michael Jackson was!  :)  After we watched the movie M says to me, "Mom, was that girl pretending to be a boy?"  not knowing that it was Michael Jackson, pre all his surgery.  The show was right from 1986 and was classic.  It was a great glimpse into how far our graphics and special effects (and hair!) have come.

On the way to eating, we passed a little place doing henna tattoos.  I love henna tattoos so I asked to get one...

Dh liked it when it was done so we were all happy with it!  :)  (it apparently means "beauty")

We ate at Restaurant Marrakesh.  Delish again!  The poor boy who poured our water spilled the first glass.  Then G spilled his glass, then the boy knocked one over when he was refilling it.  Finally they just came and took the table covering and gave us a new one!  :)  The food was divine.  I had lamb with eggplant puree.  It was so tasty.  We had a guy give us our name written in Arabic as well.

On our way out we picked up keychains for the folks and some people we needed to buy souvenirs for.

Checked the heat and found out it was 92F today.  (33C)

On our way back to our hotel we found a little lizard all squished.  We were sad one of our little friends didn't make it.

I think it is amazing even one got squished though because those suckers were fast!  It took my K a while to even get a picture of one.  (I was always last in line so they were gone by the time I got there)

If you are still with me...thanks for reading all my adventures I am recording.  I hope it is fun for you to read.  Till next time...

Cheers

Days One to Three

To preface this, Lynn left a comment on my last post telling me in no uncertain terms that she wanted to hear the "rest of the story" on the trip.  :)  I thought about it after emailing her back, and realized that this is basically my journal that I share with you all...so I better detail it here as well.  So thanks Lynn for gently SHOVING me in this direction.  :)

Because of the type of photographer I am, some of these days are less photo(y) then others.  I don't take photos of the front of rides, or people in front of things, etc.  Just the way I am.

So...

On June 3rd we left our fair city and travelled to Calgary, Alb because that is where we were flying out.  We have this thing that we always do, where we build in a day just in case our vehicle doesn't make it, so we stayed at the Port O'Call Inn.  We have AMA so we got a really good deal on staying the night and we got to leave our van there for 2 weeks no charge. 

June 4th we flew out. 

We flew to Dallas, Texas where we discovered much to my M's dismay that they don't serve "McChicken's" at McDonalds.  They had a "Southwest Style Chicken Sandwich" but it was more expensive and according to M, less tasty.  :)

We re-boarded our plane and flew to Orlando, Florida.  We arrived at 11:40pm and caught the "Magic Express" to our hotel.  (We stayed on site at the "Port Orleans Resort, Riverside"  It was cheaper for us to stay on site)  We arrived and got all checked in and finally settled in our room at 1:20am.  Blissful sleep!

June 5th

It is 92 Degrees F today with a 34% humidity.  (that is 33C )  All of our breakfasts were eaten at our hotel's Quick Serve restaurant and were all delish.

We went on a hunt for first visit pins.  We wanted the boys to be able to wear them.  We finally found them later in the day, but we searched for a while.  :)

Our hotel had a boat ferry service to Downtown Disney and we decided to take the boat over to walk around and explore.  (remember all transport from hotels on site is free)

As we walked around we discovered our boys didn't bring belts.  Not such a big deal for my middle son, but my two with no butts had troubles keeping their pants up.  We found a little place that custom made belts and got them all three some fun belts.  K chose one with music notes and G&M chose pirate belts.  Such a great indicator of who they are!  :)

Some of the places we visited were:

The Lego store where they had displays made entirely from Lego.  There was the sea monster I showed you before

And the Dragon from Sleeping Beauty (I think)

Some with scenes from Snow White, Woody from Toy story, and a few others.  The place I was most thrilled about was the little kiosks that you could make your own person with the parts provided.  There were lots of little details and you could make any Lego person you wanted with them.  :)  We visited a toy store that had a huge kiosk with parts for Mr. Potato Head.  You could buy one for $20 with as many accessories as you could stuff in a box with him.  They also had a kiosk for making your own custom Light Saber.  We had fun poking around these custom places.

We visited a really cool store I wish I would have spent more time in...it was called LittleMissMatched.  They sell everything mis-matched.  I bought some pretty cool socks there.  They sell their packs of socks in packs of 3 and they are all co-ordinating but mis-matched.  They only ship to the US though (as I sadly found out) so I have to see if my aunt (who is visiting soon) will allow me to ship to her!  :)  K found some "boyish" socks and picked them up too.

There were some cool giftshop/restaurants there as well.  As I said before, we ate at the Rainforest Cafe where the animals moved and made noise.  (M had to make sure they were "robots right Mom?!")  We sat by the elephants and had a great show each 15 min and hour intervals that they did their thing.

There was another place that was Dinosaur themed.  My G really wanted to eat there, but he was outvoted.  :)  He and his brother M got to pick a geode and crack it there though.  That was cool.  They had this little machine type press thing that you put your rock into and you cranked it until your geode broke in half.  They both got some pretty cool crystals inside their rocks.  (and only spent $8 on them!)

After we finished at Downtown we took our boat back and were tired.  As we came up the ramp from the boat dh saw a surrey and wanted to maybe come back and do that later that night.  I was all for riding it, but didn't think I could make it back after a rest!  So we took it out right away.  For $24 you could rent a 4 pedal (6 seater) one and have it for a half an hour.  The guy told us that the trail they had took 15 min to bike around so we could do it twice.  Being the kind of guy my dh is, he took that as a challenge.  Needless to say, we did the first loop in 11 1/2 min, and the second in 10!  I told him I was done and we were returning the bike!  :)

One thing our resort had were these "mini" pools for every three or so buildings.  I liked how it was still a decent size and not as crowded as the main pool.  We swam after our bike ride in our mini pool and had a blast splashing around.  Lots of the people were getting in and saying how cold the water was...we hopped in and it was like taking a bath!  The air was so warm all the time (the coldest it got at night was 82F - 27C) that the pool never cooled off. 

We finally collapsed into bed and were ready for the next day.  (next time)

Cheers

Hello Again

I know you didn't miss me...probably didn't even know I was gone...

I missed you though. 

I missed having Internet and being connected to all of this.  I did enjoy writing the posts I had scheduled though.

Where was I you ask?

Disney World of course!

My dh and I had promised our kids that if we saved (for 5 years) and then sold our house (which just happened a couple months ago) then we could take them there.  It was perfect timing as our baby turns 6 in a week and a half so he is old enough to mostly remember it.

So, if this is all you wanted to know, quit reading because here comes the rest!  :)  I only have 13 photos (out of the MANY I took) and will not give you a detailed description...but this will be long.  Just sayin'!

One of the things I enjoyed was that there were Mickey images everywhere.  On the food....

Hidden in places you wouldn't really expect...

Even on the floor in the bathroom...

It was such fun to spot one and then tell everyone else.  The boys really got into it looking at everything more carefully so they could be the ones to spot them.  :) 

Our first day there we spent just walking around Downtown Disney.  We didn't want to use our park hopper (more on that later) until the next day.  We wanted to eat later, and were discussing it when we walked into a shop. It was called "The Rainforest Cafe".  We had never heard of it, but the gift shop was fun.  While we were in there, there was a "thunderstorm" and the animals started to move and make noise.  We booked a table right then!  :)

We sat by the Elephants...

He wasn't really scared.  I told him to act it. 

Every fifteen min, the elephants would move around and bellow.  Every hour there was a thunderstorm.  It was such a cool place.

The rest of the stuff takes place over the next 9 days, and I am not going into all the detail we did all day, just highlight some stuff.  Hope that is Ok.

We also went to Lego Land.  The boys were thrilled about seeing all the things that they have made with Lego.  Now, because I live in a houseful of boys, I didn't take a photo of the princess themed things, just the "boy" stuff!  This sea monster was made of over a million Lego pieces and took over 3 months to build.

It was pretty amazing to see the creations. 

Our hotel (and lots of the other hotels we saw) had surrey's for rent.  I saw on a friend's blog (private blog so sorry, I can't link) that her family had been on one and have wanted to do one ever since.  Of course dh is ALWAYS excited to do things like that, so he was all on board with that!

It even had a nice little basket on front that my baby fit into.  He said he worked the hardest at pedaling!  :)

In a few of the parks there were some pretty cool places to visit.  We went on a "safari" seeing lots of animals up close and personal.

We went to an aquarium, finding Nemo in the process and then looking at the animals closer on our own.

Being the kind of girl I am, I was most excited about the many topiary's and planting beds they had around.

Some of them were more elaborate then others, and some were just a surprise around the corner.  It was such fun seeing the creativity.

There were fireworks every night in one of the parks (three of them do it each night).

So we enjoyed that as well.  It gets dark earlier there in Florida than we do here so it was fun to be watching in the full dark by 9pm.

There were these little lizards running around everywhere, so we made new friends.  :)

We ate some amazing food...

...and yes Mom, I even ate my parsley!  :)

Florida is much more humid than I am used to.  I am used to the heat, but the humidity...not so much.  My poor feet didn't like me by about day two.  By the end they hated me!  :)  I had a reaction to the sun...not a good one.  (which was baffling as I have been in hotter climates, like Mexico, but never had the same reaction...so weird)   But even after that it was still wonderful and totally worth it.

Just for my records, and maybe if you are doing it as well, I have a few things that I wrote down as "tips" if you will.

• Transportation around the parks and to the hotels is wonderful.  You don't have to pay, it is all included in your hotel/parks fee.  We did boats, buses, and monorail.  What a fun choice to have.  When you are hot and sticky, boats are a nice change, the monorail had A/C so if we really just wanted to sit in a cool place...that is where we headed!  :)
• Park hopper tickets were awesome.  If we started in one park and wanted to head to another, we could.  We would do rides in one and eat in another sometimes.  Or once we finished a park and hopped over to another.  It was great to have the option.
• If we did it again, we would come earlier.  It was not crazy crowded, but still more people than I would have liked.  I am so thankful we did go when we did and not later though, the lines would have been too much!
• We made reservations on the computer for dinner before we left.  It was nice on some nights, but we didn't use all of them and shuffled things around alot.  It was not necessary to make at the time we went either.  Only lunchtime was busy enough to warrant a reservation, and we weren't even doing a big sit down meal for that.
• Dining plans really do save you money if you want a sit down meal every day.  If you are doing just quick service (like a buffet type of fast food cross) for all the meals it would not be cheaper.  Food is really pricey there.  ($3.50 for a bottle of water...)
• We didn't factor in the totally inflated price of food for our tips and didn't realize that the minimum tip we would be expected to pay was $20!  It was a price we didn't expect with an all inclusive trip.  (the meals averaged around $150 per for our family...something we usually spend about $60 per for when we eat out regularly)
• Passes just to get in the park were $134/adult with $54 to add on the park hopper option.  That is just if you go for one day.  When you buy a package the price goes WAY down to $70/adult/day WITH a park hopper added on.  I was thinking it was a totally dumb price until I went into the park the first day and saw all the stuff that is included.  Now, I think it is WELL worth the price.  So much can be done in each park.
• If you get the chance, go to the shows!  The shows are amazingly done and well worth the time spent in line.  For example, we waited in line for an hour to see "The Festival of the Lion King" and it was beautiful.  The acrobatics and the costumes and the dancing and singing...all so amazing!  The 3D shows in each park are also wonderful.  I have been to 3D in the theater and really just expected that...but the 3D they have there...OH MY GOODNESS!  It is amazing.  (seems like that is my word today, sorry)  Well worth it and so wonderful.  They are interactive and totally real.  You feel as if you could actually reach out and touch the fun that comes out of the screen.  The interactive shows like the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor are also fun to go to.  My K got "spotlighted" and was "Randall" in one of the jokes.  Even without him being in the show, it was stinking hilarious!
• Parks need one and a half to two days to do.  If you are just going for a short jaunt, don't expect to get all the stuff done.  We had short lines, (often only about half an hour) but the parks are full of fun stuff to do and places to explore so it takes all day to hit it all.  (and then some)
• We did our trip through an agent (AMA) and it was such a great experience.  We got a wonderful deal and it was worth it to have the stress gone planning for something I didn't really know alot about.  She was wonderful to work with.  If you are going as a whole package thing, I would heartily say to go with an agent, they know what they are doing.  (or maybe I lucked out...)

We had such fun and it is a trip that we will remember forever.  Hope it wasn't too boring for you to read about.  :)

I will be back on track soon...and hope to keep the blog up as I settle (and finish laundry).

Cheers