And, we come to the end. Friday was a lovely day. We could have gotten up early to get into Hollywood Studios early, but we decided against it. First off, we had gotten so much checked off the list on Wednesday that we didn't need to see the whole park. Secondly, it was the end of the week, and we had gotten up early every day and gone to bed late every night. We just could not keep up that pace for one more day.
Hollywood Studios is a tricky park to navigate because so much of it is shows. So you are basically going from one show to another, which limits your schedule. We managed to take in Beauty and the Beast (a must see), Indiana Jones, the Little Mermaid, and the Disney Junior show. We enjoyed them all, but it makes for a long day of just...watching shows. My family loved Indiana Jones, which is odd because the girls have never seen it. The Disney Junior show was my least favorite because they make you sit on the floor and then they use rather small puppets, which seems silly since they use huge, life size characters for litterally everything else.
We had fastpasses for the cool rides-the Tower of Terror, the Rock 'n Rollercoaster, and Toy Story Mania. Just Betsy and I rode the first two and we had such fun. I am so lucky to have been with her on her first ride on an upside down rollercoaster. And the Tower of Terror is just one of my most favorite rides ever, so it was fun to share that with her.
Toy Story Mania we rode with April's family-Mallory and Betsy rode together, Nick and Felicity, Jeremy and Natalie, and April and me. We had such fun and I won! (April had me beat until the last bit, and then I beat her!) This ride is the best ride at Hollywood Studios and possibly the entire park.
That said, Hollywood Studios is in need of something. It does have cool rides-Tower of Terror, Rock 'n Rollercoaster, Toy Story Mania!, and Star Tours-and it does have some great shows-Beauty and the Beast, Indiana Jones, Fantasmic. However, lots of space is wasted, lots of shows are lacking, lots of rides (like the Backstage Studio tour and the Art of Animation) have lost their entire purpose since it is not longer a working backlot and studio.
My suggestion would be for them to turn some of the park into a look at vintage Disney movies. I love, love, love learning about how movies like my favorite The Parent Trap were made. No, this is not how movies are made now, but what they managed to do at the time was amazing. Especially with the animation.
And then I would amp up the Pixar connection. Toy Story Mania is so cool, and it's just all alone, drifting. Add some more interactive rides, and keep the Pixar theme.
We had lunch at the Sci-Fi Drive In Diner, which is so cool. We ate in a car, watching old previews for monster movies. We did have to pay for that ourselves, as it was not included in the quick service dining, but it was much enjoyed.
We also took a lot of time to do pin trading. I have promised to explain it, so here goes: remember back when I said that we bought a lot of pins (50 of them) from ebay. And we bought each girl a lanyard. Okay, so if you are wanting to pin trade, you put the lanyard on and start walking. Almost every Disney cast member is wearing pins, and a lot of them will beckon you over if your are wearing a lanyard. Simply look at their pins and select the one you want. Offer them any pin from your own lanyard and they will trade. I was worried that they wouldn't want some of our junkier pins, but they will take anything. We had a fabulous time trying to find cooler and cooler pins. Nick had a blast hunting down Eeyore pins.
Nick is going to make a shadow box of our pins. If we ever return, we will spend lots of time pin trading. It was such a fun memory-one that I would never have managed on my own, because I'm just too shy, but luckily the others I travel with are braver.
Another fun part of our trip that somehow I can't seem to remember to add in here is that the girls also enjoyed finding hidden Mickeys on all of the rides. We would have such a blast when we got off of rides, saying, "Did you see this hidden Mickey?" Sometimes we had a heads up and knew to look for them, but mostly we found them on our own.
Friday evening we returned to our hotel and the girls went swimming. They had been wanting to do that all week. I enjoyed being off my feet (I have managed to avoid going into too much detail about my ordeal with my knee-all you need know is that I was in a great deal of pain all week, and being at a huge, never ending amusement park is not the best place to heal-but I still had the best vacation of my life, in spite of it).
This vacation was amazing. It did not rain once all week, we had glorious Florida sunshine the whole week. We managed to do almost everything on my itinerary, and we did not argue to near the extent that I worried we might. As I'm pretty sure I've mentioned repeatedly, I can never thank my parents enough for all that they do for us. I am blessed.
السبت، 22 فبراير 2014
الثلاثاء، 28 يناير 2014
Thursday: Happy birthday from Mickey Mouse!
So, at long last we come to Thursday. Thursday was without question my favorite day of the entire Disney week. Thursday just happened to be October 3, which is the day that my mom was born 61 years ago. And so, that was basically the entire reason for this trip-celebrating my mom's birthday.
Now, it did not start out so grandly. No, indeed. You see, Johnsons' are boy scouts. Especially Mr. Nicholas Johnson. He loves being first in line, he loves knowing that he is where he is supposed to be, at a set time. So the girls and I were up promptly at 6 AM all week, and we were always parked in the front row, waiting for the park to open. But this day, Thursday, we were under strict instructions to wait on my mom and dad, as well as my sister and her family, before going into the park, because my mom wanted a picture of all of us in front of the castle. Needless to say, we were there first. We watched the super cute opening of the park (I recommend seeing it sometime during your trip) and then the people started filing in, and we were not among them. Nick's head just about exploded.
Once we were all there, we proceeded to get *the picture.* This picture was the most important part of the day. We all had to wear Ohio State clothing for said picture. We all stood on Main Street while people filed past, smiling and none of us all looking the same direction at the same time. But we got the picture. (Later on, we realized that we should have gotten a picture in what they call "the rose garden," where there is no crowd behind you-it would have made a better shot.)
For the rest of the day, everywhere we went, we heard, "O-H!" And people knew that we were together, even when we were far apart. It was very surreal.
We didn't have much to do on this second day at the Magic Kingdom. Because we had managed to do so much the first day, there were only a handful of rides left on our list. We rode Winnie-the-Pooh, which had been closed the first day. The girls and my dad rode the Alice in Wonderland spinning tea cups. We met Alice, as well as Merida, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Rapunzel. Character greetings were allowed to take up time, since we had pretty much ridden everything prior. We went to Belle's storytime, which is a very cute and interactive new "greeting."
At noon, we went to the Be Our Guest restaurant. They serve quick service for lunch, plated for dinner. We were on the quick service meal plan, so if we were going to go, it had to be lunchtime. We waited in line for about half an hour. Oh. My. Goodness. The food was delicious-expecially the cupcake that I had for dessert. It is billed as the cupcake "with the grey stuff," (like in the "Be Our Guest" song)-it was so yummy. Overall, it was my favorite dining experience, especially for the quick service restaurants.
After that, we rode It's a Small World, and took in The Hall of Presidents. Mom and Dad are great seat savers (truly, my mom has a glare for anyone who tries to hedge in on her space) and so they went off to save seats for the afternoon parade. My family went to ride The Jungle Cruise. Betsy got to steer the boat (she still thinks that she really steered it, I can't bring myself to explain that it is on a rail). We found my family right at the start of the parade, and we got another picture taken. (The photographer told us that we had wasted money on buying 2 photopasses, and that we could have bought 1 and still gotten pictures of everyone in different places-at the time I didn't believe him, but now that I have actually ordered the pictures, I see that he was right.)
The parade was wonderful, and then we headed off to the Bippidi-Boppidi-Boutique for the girls to get their hair and nails done. This was expensive-we got the package with nails and hair only, and even that was a lot-but the girls really loved it, and they did come away with a goody bag of stuff that they are still using even today. I do not reccomend getting the package with the pictures-we went and had the girls pictures taken with our photopasses immediately afterward-and that was the same thing, for about $100 less.
The girls at this point had also put their Halloween costumes on. Betsy was Pocahontas, Felicity was Tinker Bell, and Mallory was Holiday Belle. (Natalie was Snow White, but she was too little to have her hair done.) We were ready for the Not-So-Scary Halloween party. We headed off and got our entry bracelets, stopped for a quick picture with Tiana, and then April and I went and got in line for the picture with the dwarfs.
The dwarfs only come out for pictures at Halloween and Christmas. April loves Dopey and must have her picture with him every time she goes. So she and I got in line around 6 PM. They started taking pictures at 7 PM. So we sat and waited and made friends with the people in line beside us. Nick and Jeremy took the girls for dinner at Pinnochio's and brought us some closer to time.
Mom and Dad, during this interval, had gone off in search of the Dapper Dans, which was the one thing that my mom wanted to be sure and see. They found them and they sang happy birthday to my mom, which was the highlight of her trip.
Once our family came and joined us at about 10 minutes to 7, we were 5 people back from the start of the line. Promptly at 7 the dwarfs came out. Jeremy told the photographer to put April near Dopey, so it was a perfect picture.
Mom and Dad headed off to save seats for the Halloween parade, while the rest of us got in line to see the Pooh characters. They didn't come out until 7:30, so again we waited. But we had to-Nick had to see Eeyore in his Halloween costume. That picture taken, we went to find Mom and Dad, who again had staked out prime real estate at the front of the parade.
The Halloween parade starts off with the headless horseman, which is very cool. It was a wonderful parade. Then we headed over to the ice cream parlor (it is a running joke-but a true one-that my dad always wants ice cream at Disney World), got ice cream cones, and got ready to watch the fireworks. Mom and Dad finished their ice cream and left, wanting to beat the crowd. We were standing up, but a very nice couple sitting at a table turned and asked if we would like their seats. So we had prime seats for the Halloween fireworks, which are spectacular.
After that, we took the girls to several candy stations. We got pictures taken with Buzz Lightyear, Goofy, Daisy, the mice from Cinderella. We danced with Monsters Inc. people and Jessie and Woody. It was just after 11 when we started back toward the entrance, and we stopped in to see Mickey and Minnie and there was no line.
It was a long day-I'm not going to lie, tempers flared several times. But mostly, it was a great day, and I loved getting to spend the whole day with my entire family. My mom had on a button that told the world that it was her birthday, and so everyone who passed by us would yell, "Happy birthday, DEENA!" (My mom's name is DINAH, but it is spelled Dina, and everyone says it wrong.) So allow me to say, months too late, but with all the love in my heart, "Happy birthday MOM!"
Now, it did not start out so grandly. No, indeed. You see, Johnsons' are boy scouts. Especially Mr. Nicholas Johnson. He loves being first in line, he loves knowing that he is where he is supposed to be, at a set time. So the girls and I were up promptly at 6 AM all week, and we were always parked in the front row, waiting for the park to open. But this day, Thursday, we were under strict instructions to wait on my mom and dad, as well as my sister and her family, before going into the park, because my mom wanted a picture of all of us in front of the castle. Needless to say, we were there first. We watched the super cute opening of the park (I recommend seeing it sometime during your trip) and then the people started filing in, and we were not among them. Nick's head just about exploded.
Once we were all there, we proceeded to get *the picture.* This picture was the most important part of the day. We all had to wear Ohio State clothing for said picture. We all stood on Main Street while people filed past, smiling and none of us all looking the same direction at the same time. But we got the picture. (Later on, we realized that we should have gotten a picture in what they call "the rose garden," where there is no crowd behind you-it would have made a better shot.)
For the rest of the day, everywhere we went, we heard, "O-H!" And people knew that we were together, even when we were far apart. It was very surreal.
We didn't have much to do on this second day at the Magic Kingdom. Because we had managed to do so much the first day, there were only a handful of rides left on our list. We rode Winnie-the-Pooh, which had been closed the first day. The girls and my dad rode the Alice in Wonderland spinning tea cups. We met Alice, as well as Merida, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Rapunzel. Character greetings were allowed to take up time, since we had pretty much ridden everything prior. We went to Belle's storytime, which is a very cute and interactive new "greeting."
At noon, we went to the Be Our Guest restaurant. They serve quick service for lunch, plated for dinner. We were on the quick service meal plan, so if we were going to go, it had to be lunchtime. We waited in line for about half an hour. Oh. My. Goodness. The food was delicious-expecially the cupcake that I had for dessert. It is billed as the cupcake "with the grey stuff," (like in the "Be Our Guest" song)-it was so yummy. Overall, it was my favorite dining experience, especially for the quick service restaurants.
After that, we rode It's a Small World, and took in The Hall of Presidents. Mom and Dad are great seat savers (truly, my mom has a glare for anyone who tries to hedge in on her space) and so they went off to save seats for the afternoon parade. My family went to ride The Jungle Cruise. Betsy got to steer the boat (she still thinks that she really steered it, I can't bring myself to explain that it is on a rail). We found my family right at the start of the parade, and we got another picture taken. (The photographer told us that we had wasted money on buying 2 photopasses, and that we could have bought 1 and still gotten pictures of everyone in different places-at the time I didn't believe him, but now that I have actually ordered the pictures, I see that he was right.)
The parade was wonderful, and then we headed off to the Bippidi-Boppidi-Boutique for the girls to get their hair and nails done. This was expensive-we got the package with nails and hair only, and even that was a lot-but the girls really loved it, and they did come away with a goody bag of stuff that they are still using even today. I do not reccomend getting the package with the pictures-we went and had the girls pictures taken with our photopasses immediately afterward-and that was the same thing, for about $100 less.
The girls at this point had also put their Halloween costumes on. Betsy was Pocahontas, Felicity was Tinker Bell, and Mallory was Holiday Belle. (Natalie was Snow White, but she was too little to have her hair done.) We were ready for the Not-So-Scary Halloween party. We headed off and got our entry bracelets, stopped for a quick picture with Tiana, and then April and I went and got in line for the picture with the dwarfs.
The dwarfs only come out for pictures at Halloween and Christmas. April loves Dopey and must have her picture with him every time she goes. So she and I got in line around 6 PM. They started taking pictures at 7 PM. So we sat and waited and made friends with the people in line beside us. Nick and Jeremy took the girls for dinner at Pinnochio's and brought us some closer to time.
Mom and Dad, during this interval, had gone off in search of the Dapper Dans, which was the one thing that my mom wanted to be sure and see. They found them and they sang happy birthday to my mom, which was the highlight of her trip.
Once our family came and joined us at about 10 minutes to 7, we were 5 people back from the start of the line. Promptly at 7 the dwarfs came out. Jeremy told the photographer to put April near Dopey, so it was a perfect picture.
Mom and Dad headed off to save seats for the Halloween parade, while the rest of us got in line to see the Pooh characters. They didn't come out until 7:30, so again we waited. But we had to-Nick had to see Eeyore in his Halloween costume. That picture taken, we went to find Mom and Dad, who again had staked out prime real estate at the front of the parade.
The Halloween parade starts off with the headless horseman, which is very cool. It was a wonderful parade. Then we headed over to the ice cream parlor (it is a running joke-but a true one-that my dad always wants ice cream at Disney World), got ice cream cones, and got ready to watch the fireworks. Mom and Dad finished their ice cream and left, wanting to beat the crowd. We were standing up, but a very nice couple sitting at a table turned and asked if we would like their seats. So we had prime seats for the Halloween fireworks, which are spectacular.
After that, we took the girls to several candy stations. We got pictures taken with Buzz Lightyear, Goofy, Daisy, the mice from Cinderella. We danced with Monsters Inc. people and Jessie and Woody. It was just after 11 when we started back toward the entrance, and we stopped in to see Mickey and Minnie and there was no line.
It was a long day-I'm not going to lie, tempers flared several times. But mostly, it was a great day, and I loved getting to spend the whole day with my entire family. My mom had on a button that told the world that it was her birthday, and so everyone who passed by us would yell, "Happy birthday, DEENA!" (My mom's name is DINAH, but it is spelled Dina, and everyone says it wrong.) So allow me to say, months too late, but with all the love in my heart, "Happy birthday MOM!"
السبت، 28 ديسمبر 2013
Wednesday: Animal Kingdom, World Showcase, and a Near Melt Down
Well, two in a row! I am doing well here. Okay, on to Wednesday. Wednesday was a really nice day because we were able to sleep in until 7 AM, as none of the parks had early magic hours that day. We didn't have to leave our room until 8 AM to be to the Animal Kingdom by 9.
Now, I had never been to the Animal Kingdom before. That made things difficult. It was hard to guess at what fastpasses to choose, or how far away things might be-and that will become glaringly obvious.
When we walked in, we chose to go on the Kilimanjaro Safari first, for two reasons. Number one, it can take a significant period of time. Number two, it seemed like the most important thing to see at the Animal Kingdom would be animals.
I will confess here, I'm not much of a zoo person. Oh, we dutifully go to the zoo every year, and we even usually go out to the Wilds every year as well. And animals are super cute and vital to our lives as humans and I know that. But-I'm just not a person who loves, loves, loves looking at animals. And that is an important caveat about a lot of this particular theme park.
Kilimanjaro Safari is a lot like a much shorter ride through the Wilds. Take that as you will. We had to stand in line for about 15 minutes to get on, first thing in the day. Then it lasts about 20 minutes. It lets you out at the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, so we walked through it. At this point, the girls picked up a Junior Ranger program thing, which sounded cool in theory, but ended up taking so much time that we had to put them away. This would be where knowing your kids interest in this would be helpful-are they really into animals and learning about their habitats? Then by all means, do this. If not, it turns into a huge time suck-and with fastpasses, we just did not have time to devote to much of it.
Then we made another ill thought out decision. We chose to go over to Rafiki's Planet Watch. This was a huge mistake. In the first place, we had a fastpass at 10:45 AM, and it was a little after 10 when we got to the train station to go over. Then we had to wait for the train-which took a long time because they only have the one train-and then riding over took 10 more minutes. Once there, we just had to hurry and see the vets working on a monkey (which was a shame, because Betsy loves watching things like that) and then hurry back to catch the train again. We then had to book it to the Finding Nemo show, which was where we had a fastpass for seating. In this summer, a fastpass for seating is probably a good thing. In October, when no one is there, it is unnecessary. So we hurried for basically no reason, and anyone who knows my husband, knows that nerves were frayed at this point.
That said, Finding Nemo is super cute and not to be missed. Then Betsy and I rode Expedition Everest (again, we had a fastpass) and it was really a lot of fun. We went and got a regular fastpass for about a half hour later for the Kali River Rapids, so we decided to go ahead and eat our lunch. We had counter service at Yak and Yeti, which we enjoyed (my kids really like Asian food a lot). We then got in the fastpass line for Kali River Rapids. This was the first (and last) time that we had to stand in a line, even with a fastpass. It took about 15 minutes for us to get through the line. Nick and Betsy got fairly wet, but Felicity and I did not.
At this point, we were late for our fastpass for the Lion King. And we were fairly far away. (I should also point out, we had on flipflops-never recommended for the amount of walking one has to do at Disney World, however, necessary when riding Kali River Rapids to keep from having wet socks and shoes all day.) So, Nick is lugging around the backpack with our tennis shoes, and he's all wet, and we have quite a hike, and he is wearing flipflops. So it's not too shocking that he got mad, insisted that he needed to change his shoes, and proceeded to do just that. And Betsy did the same. Felicity and I hoofed it to the Lion King-missing the time for our fastpass, but going in anyway-and then I spent the next half hour, while watching an amazing, not to be missed show, worried that Nick and Betsy were missing it. They weren't of course, they were a few rows behind us. But it marked a low point for us.
We then took a break to change our shoes, do some pin trading (yes, I will be writing a whole blog about pin trading soon), and calm down. We made our way over to the Dinosaur ride, which was fun (even Felicity liked it, and she was scared of a lot of things). Then Betsy and I rode the Primeval Whirl and the girls and I rode the Triceritop Spin. All good fun.
We trekked back toward Asia for Flights of Wonder, which was a cute show about birds. Then we stepped outside and got great seats for the parade, which is right along that route. Then we trekked back toward the entrance and watched the short 3D film, It's Tough to be a Bug, which scared Betsy silly. (She is overall pretty freaked out by spiders, I should say.)
The Animal Kingdom closes at 5 PM, so we drove over to Epcot for the remainder of the night. We spent the evening in the World Showcase. We rode Mexico and Norway's rides, and watched Chinese acrobats. We saw the American Adventure program, which in my opinion is one of the best things at Disney World.
But the best part of our night was that the Food and Wine Festival was going on. Oh. My. Goodness. If you get the chance, go. Everything is really reasonably priced for Disney, meaning around $5 for most food. But the kicker was that we could use our snack credits for some selections. You get a snack credit a day, and we would never have used all of them in a week if not for this.
First, we got some Chinese food, because we all love Chinese food. We also got some lemonade with snack credit. Then we got ravioli from Italy-I am telling you, it was the *best* ravioli I have ever had. Italy also has this staircase near the lagoon, and I walked over it and was surprised to find no one sitting on the other side. It was the perfect place to sit and watch Illuminations. I called April and had her family join us. It was literally one of my most favorite memories of the whole trip, sitting there with such great seats, eating melt in your mouth ravioli.
It made up for the whole flipflops, wet clothes, trek 10 miles anger earlier in the day. Almost.
Now, I had never been to the Animal Kingdom before. That made things difficult. It was hard to guess at what fastpasses to choose, or how far away things might be-and that will become glaringly obvious.
When we walked in, we chose to go on the Kilimanjaro Safari first, for two reasons. Number one, it can take a significant period of time. Number two, it seemed like the most important thing to see at the Animal Kingdom would be animals.
I will confess here, I'm not much of a zoo person. Oh, we dutifully go to the zoo every year, and we even usually go out to the Wilds every year as well. And animals are super cute and vital to our lives as humans and I know that. But-I'm just not a person who loves, loves, loves looking at animals. And that is an important caveat about a lot of this particular theme park.
Kilimanjaro Safari is a lot like a much shorter ride through the Wilds. Take that as you will. We had to stand in line for about 15 minutes to get on, first thing in the day. Then it lasts about 20 minutes. It lets you out at the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, so we walked through it. At this point, the girls picked up a Junior Ranger program thing, which sounded cool in theory, but ended up taking so much time that we had to put them away. This would be where knowing your kids interest in this would be helpful-are they really into animals and learning about their habitats? Then by all means, do this. If not, it turns into a huge time suck-and with fastpasses, we just did not have time to devote to much of it.
Then we made another ill thought out decision. We chose to go over to Rafiki's Planet Watch. This was a huge mistake. In the first place, we had a fastpass at 10:45 AM, and it was a little after 10 when we got to the train station to go over. Then we had to wait for the train-which took a long time because they only have the one train-and then riding over took 10 more minutes. Once there, we just had to hurry and see the vets working on a monkey (which was a shame, because Betsy loves watching things like that) and then hurry back to catch the train again. We then had to book it to the Finding Nemo show, which was where we had a fastpass for seating. In this summer, a fastpass for seating is probably a good thing. In October, when no one is there, it is unnecessary. So we hurried for basically no reason, and anyone who knows my husband, knows that nerves were frayed at this point.
That said, Finding Nemo is super cute and not to be missed. Then Betsy and I rode Expedition Everest (again, we had a fastpass) and it was really a lot of fun. We went and got a regular fastpass for about a half hour later for the Kali River Rapids, so we decided to go ahead and eat our lunch. We had counter service at Yak and Yeti, which we enjoyed (my kids really like Asian food a lot). We then got in the fastpass line for Kali River Rapids. This was the first (and last) time that we had to stand in a line, even with a fastpass. It took about 15 minutes for us to get through the line. Nick and Betsy got fairly wet, but Felicity and I did not.
At this point, we were late for our fastpass for the Lion King. And we were fairly far away. (I should also point out, we had on flipflops-never recommended for the amount of walking one has to do at Disney World, however, necessary when riding Kali River Rapids to keep from having wet socks and shoes all day.) So, Nick is lugging around the backpack with our tennis shoes, and he's all wet, and we have quite a hike, and he is wearing flipflops. So it's not too shocking that he got mad, insisted that he needed to change his shoes, and proceeded to do just that. And Betsy did the same. Felicity and I hoofed it to the Lion King-missing the time for our fastpass, but going in anyway-and then I spent the next half hour, while watching an amazing, not to be missed show, worried that Nick and Betsy were missing it. They weren't of course, they were a few rows behind us. But it marked a low point for us.
We then took a break to change our shoes, do some pin trading (yes, I will be writing a whole blog about pin trading soon), and calm down. We made our way over to the Dinosaur ride, which was fun (even Felicity liked it, and she was scared of a lot of things). Then Betsy and I rode the Primeval Whirl and the girls and I rode the Triceritop Spin. All good fun.
We trekked back toward Asia for Flights of Wonder, which was a cute show about birds. Then we stepped outside and got great seats for the parade, which is right along that route. Then we trekked back toward the entrance and watched the short 3D film, It's Tough to be a Bug, which scared Betsy silly. (She is overall pretty freaked out by spiders, I should say.)
The Animal Kingdom closes at 5 PM, so we drove over to Epcot for the remainder of the night. We spent the evening in the World Showcase. We rode Mexico and Norway's rides, and watched Chinese acrobats. We saw the American Adventure program, which in my opinion is one of the best things at Disney World.
But the best part of our night was that the Food and Wine Festival was going on. Oh. My. Goodness. If you get the chance, go. Everything is really reasonably priced for Disney, meaning around $5 for most food. But the kicker was that we could use our snack credits for some selections. You get a snack credit a day, and we would never have used all of them in a week if not for this.
First, we got some Chinese food, because we all love Chinese food. We also got some lemonade with snack credit. Then we got ravioli from Italy-I am telling you, it was the *best* ravioli I have ever had. Italy also has this staircase near the lagoon, and I walked over it and was surprised to find no one sitting on the other side. It was the perfect place to sit and watch Illuminations. I called April and had her family join us. It was literally one of my most favorite memories of the whole trip, sitting there with such great seats, eating melt in your mouth ravioli.
It made up for the whole flipflops, wet clothes, trek 10 miles anger earlier in the day. Almost.
الجمعة، 27 ديسمبر 2013
Tuesday: Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and A Very Important Date
So...the holidays are over, I have recovered from a horrendous bout with both the actual flu and a stomach flu, and I have a goal of getting this blog series at least somewhat done before the new year. Ambitious, considering that I'm still only on Tuesday, but we'll try.
Tuesday began like most days for the Johnson family. Up by 6 AM, out the door by 7 AM, for an 8 AM opening of the park. We chose to go to the park that opened early for extra magic hours-this is a controversial decision. Most sites recommend against it, as that park is ineveitably more crowded that day. However, as I mentioned, going in early October, there was no one there. And so, even if it was a slightly more full park, it was still worth getting up early and beating what crowd there was.
So, we drove to Epcot, parked in the front row (this always made Nick happy, to park in the front row), and got in the line to enter the park. This is where Joy's intinerary became invaluable. When the park opened, my husband wanted to go to Spaceship Earth-because it was right there in front of us. Let me assure you, you need never, ever worry about a line at Spaceship Earth. If you walk up to Spaceship Earth and there is a line, leave and come back later. You should never, ever stand in a line for Spaceship Earth.
No, when the park opened, we made a mad dash over to the Land, hurried down the stairs and into Soarin'. We were among the first people to ride this incredibly popular ride. Basically you are strapped into a seat and lifted up-the rest of the ride is a feeling that you are soaring over the most beautiful scenery but you aren't actually moving. It was a wonderful ride and the girls (especially Felicity) loved it. Felicity was scared of a lot of rides, but this one was just pure fun.
After that, we rode Living With The Land. It is a boat ride and we were the only people on it. Still amazes me. It was really interesting to see how they grow the food there, especially since we later ate at the Land for lunch. But more about that later.
Then I made what in hindsight was a tactical error. We should have gone to one of the other pavillions that was open early-but we chose to wait around 15 minutes to watch the "Circle of Life" movie about conservation. It is a cute movie, but still, we wasted 15 minutes waiting.
We walked over to the Living Seas next. The thing about Epcot is that things can take as long as you want. We rode the short ride in, then took in Turtle Talk with Crush-which is so very cute, I highly recommend it-and then we watched the fish for a while. They were feeding the fish at that time, so it's an interesting time to go.
We had fastpasses for Mission: Space and Test Track, so we had to walk over to the other side of Future World (another important caveat for Epcot-it is large and walking places takes a lot of time). Betsy and I rode Mission: Space and chose to do the tamer version. I love thrill rides, but I didn't get much out of it. Betsy liked it more than I did.
Test Track we all four rode. You are in teams of 2 and 2, so Nick went with Betsy and I went with Felicity. You get to design your own car and then test it out and compare your scores. Of course, Nick and Betsy won (Felicity was mostly concerned with the color of our car, which was pink). It was a lot of fun.
Next, I wanted to fit in the Universe of Energy. However, it was just a hair past 11 AM, and we would have had to wait 15 minutes for another show to start and then it takes 45 minutes total to view the whole thing. This was just too much time to fit anything else in, and try as I might, we never did make it back.
Instead, we walked over to Innovations and went in Club Cool, where you can sample different kinds of Coke from around the world. We enjoyed it very much, as we were quite thirsty. Then we went to Journey Into Imagination and rode it. (We were told later that it is being closed in 2014 for extensive renovations.) We did a lot of the fun, try it yourself things at the end (being there when no one is there really helps with getting to do hands on stuff at Epcot), but did not have time to see Captain EO (I'm not sure that would have meant much to the girls, as they really don't know too much about Michael Jackson-my bad).
We had a fastpass to meet the Disney Characters available at the Character Spot, who turned out to be Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy. We played a game about saving money next, which was really cute for the girls. Then we headed back up to the Land for lunch. The Land is the best place to lunch at Epcot, I think, especially on the quick dining plan. There are lots of different options (it's like a food court) and very healthy ones at that. Our food was really delicious.
We then had just enough time to squeeze in that Spaceship Earth ride before we had to leave, to get to the Grand Floridian for the girls Alice in Wonderland tea party. This cost $40 per kid, which in the world of Disney is relatively cheap. It was a really nice time for the girls-it was only them and Mallory and two other girls-for one hour having a tea party with Alice and the Mad Hatter. They had tea and cookies, and made a craft, and just basically had a grand time (I will upload the pictures to my Facebook page, and just watch how much fun they are having). April, Jeremy, Nick, Mom, Dad, Natalie, and I hung out in the lobby for an hour, talking, while they were enjoying.
Now, again in hindsight, I should have let the girls bring their bathing suits and go swimming afterwards. The Grand Floridian has really nice pools, including a very cute Mad Hatter themed pool that Felicity wanted to swim in all week. But instead, we hurried over to Hollywood Studios in order to catch Lights! Motor! Action! This is a long show about stunt work, which I thought would be really cool for Nick. Which it probably was-but the girls would have had more fun swimming.
However, very cooly, we came out of that show and quite near a side street where they were having a practice for character greetings. This was a cool way to meet a lot of characters at once, and not common ones. We met Mulan, Pinnochio, Genie-and more that I'm having touble remembering-good thing we took pictures.
We rode the Great Movie Ride and Star Tours (Felicity was chosen as the rebel spy and the girls love that). We saw Muppets 4-D. We chose to go to the second showing of Fantasmic!, so we were able to ride Toy Story Mania with no line (which never, ever happens) and it is indeed the best ride at Disney World. Then we went to see Walt Disney: One Man's Dream, which is touching and made me cry. Then we went over to watch the second Fantasmic! It is fabulous and not to be missed.
It was a lot to crowd into one day, but again, the no lines thing was so cool. In the end, yes, I would have planned some things in a different order, but mostly, it was tons of fun.
Tuesday began like most days for the Johnson family. Up by 6 AM, out the door by 7 AM, for an 8 AM opening of the park. We chose to go to the park that opened early for extra magic hours-this is a controversial decision. Most sites recommend against it, as that park is ineveitably more crowded that day. However, as I mentioned, going in early October, there was no one there. And so, even if it was a slightly more full park, it was still worth getting up early and beating what crowd there was.
So, we drove to Epcot, parked in the front row (this always made Nick happy, to park in the front row), and got in the line to enter the park. This is where Joy's intinerary became invaluable. When the park opened, my husband wanted to go to Spaceship Earth-because it was right there in front of us. Let me assure you, you need never, ever worry about a line at Spaceship Earth. If you walk up to Spaceship Earth and there is a line, leave and come back later. You should never, ever stand in a line for Spaceship Earth.
No, when the park opened, we made a mad dash over to the Land, hurried down the stairs and into Soarin'. We were among the first people to ride this incredibly popular ride. Basically you are strapped into a seat and lifted up-the rest of the ride is a feeling that you are soaring over the most beautiful scenery but you aren't actually moving. It was a wonderful ride and the girls (especially Felicity) loved it. Felicity was scared of a lot of rides, but this one was just pure fun.
After that, we rode Living With The Land. It is a boat ride and we were the only people on it. Still amazes me. It was really interesting to see how they grow the food there, especially since we later ate at the Land for lunch. But more about that later.
Then I made what in hindsight was a tactical error. We should have gone to one of the other pavillions that was open early-but we chose to wait around 15 minutes to watch the "Circle of Life" movie about conservation. It is a cute movie, but still, we wasted 15 minutes waiting.
We walked over to the Living Seas next. The thing about Epcot is that things can take as long as you want. We rode the short ride in, then took in Turtle Talk with Crush-which is so very cute, I highly recommend it-and then we watched the fish for a while. They were feeding the fish at that time, so it's an interesting time to go.
We had fastpasses for Mission: Space and Test Track, so we had to walk over to the other side of Future World (another important caveat for Epcot-it is large and walking places takes a lot of time). Betsy and I rode Mission: Space and chose to do the tamer version. I love thrill rides, but I didn't get much out of it. Betsy liked it more than I did.
Test Track we all four rode. You are in teams of 2 and 2, so Nick went with Betsy and I went with Felicity. You get to design your own car and then test it out and compare your scores. Of course, Nick and Betsy won (Felicity was mostly concerned with the color of our car, which was pink). It was a lot of fun.
Next, I wanted to fit in the Universe of Energy. However, it was just a hair past 11 AM, and we would have had to wait 15 minutes for another show to start and then it takes 45 minutes total to view the whole thing. This was just too much time to fit anything else in, and try as I might, we never did make it back.
Instead, we walked over to Innovations and went in Club Cool, where you can sample different kinds of Coke from around the world. We enjoyed it very much, as we were quite thirsty. Then we went to Journey Into Imagination and rode it. (We were told later that it is being closed in 2014 for extensive renovations.) We did a lot of the fun, try it yourself things at the end (being there when no one is there really helps with getting to do hands on stuff at Epcot), but did not have time to see Captain EO (I'm not sure that would have meant much to the girls, as they really don't know too much about Michael Jackson-my bad).
We had a fastpass to meet the Disney Characters available at the Character Spot, who turned out to be Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy. We played a game about saving money next, which was really cute for the girls. Then we headed back up to the Land for lunch. The Land is the best place to lunch at Epcot, I think, especially on the quick dining plan. There are lots of different options (it's like a food court) and very healthy ones at that. Our food was really delicious.
We then had just enough time to squeeze in that Spaceship Earth ride before we had to leave, to get to the Grand Floridian for the girls Alice in Wonderland tea party. This cost $40 per kid, which in the world of Disney is relatively cheap. It was a really nice time for the girls-it was only them and Mallory and two other girls-for one hour having a tea party with Alice and the Mad Hatter. They had tea and cookies, and made a craft, and just basically had a grand time (I will upload the pictures to my Facebook page, and just watch how much fun they are having). April, Jeremy, Nick, Mom, Dad, Natalie, and I hung out in the lobby for an hour, talking, while they were enjoying.
Now, again in hindsight, I should have let the girls bring their bathing suits and go swimming afterwards. The Grand Floridian has really nice pools, including a very cute Mad Hatter themed pool that Felicity wanted to swim in all week. But instead, we hurried over to Hollywood Studios in order to catch Lights! Motor! Action! This is a long show about stunt work, which I thought would be really cool for Nick. Which it probably was-but the girls would have had more fun swimming.
However, very cooly, we came out of that show and quite near a side street where they were having a practice for character greetings. This was a cool way to meet a lot of characters at once, and not common ones. We met Mulan, Pinnochio, Genie-and more that I'm having touble remembering-good thing we took pictures.
We rode the Great Movie Ride and Star Tours (Felicity was chosen as the rebel spy and the girls love that). We saw Muppets 4-D. We chose to go to the second showing of Fantasmic!, so we were able to ride Toy Story Mania with no line (which never, ever happens) and it is indeed the best ride at Disney World. Then we went to see Walt Disney: One Man's Dream, which is touching and made me cry. Then we went over to watch the second Fantasmic! It is fabulous and not to be missed.
It was a lot to crowd into one day, but again, the no lines thing was so cool. In the end, yes, I would have planned some things in a different order, but mostly, it was tons of fun.
الأحد، 3 نوفمبر 2013
Have a magical day...
Okay, we have reached the big time. The Magic Kingdom. To many people, the Magic Kingdom is Disney World. I was hesitant to allow it to be the first theme park of our visit. I was afraid that the other 3 parks would pale in comparision, especially with 2 kids and a husband who acts like a kid most of the time. However, we had reservations for a character breakfast at the Magic Kingdom that day, and it just made sense to stay once we were already there (I had images of pulling them away from the castle, while they yelled "NOOOOO!")
So, off we went. Our breakfast reservations were for 8:15 AM. The guide book recommended leaving 45 minutes early. This seemed silly to me at the time. We were not there when it was crowded, we didn't have to deal with traffic. However, we barely made it. Parking was easy-but you are parking at the Transportation and Ticket Center. Then you have to get on the monorail and go through the Polynesian and the Grand Floridian-and, much to my surprise, the monorails move pretty slowly first thing in the morning. We were still sitting on it at 5 after 8 and I was trying very hard not to panic.
We disembarked the monorail, headed for the ticket gate for people with breakfast reservations (leaving the people waiting for the park to open at 9 in the dust), and hurried inside. And then the most magical part of our entire vacation happened: a man was standing just inside the park, with a Main Street vehicle, and said, "Where are you headed?" "The Crystal Palace." "Would you like a ride?"
I was thrilled! I have never ridden in a Main Street vehicle before. We rode along Main Street, my husband simply overwhelmed by everything, asking if visiting the stores on Main Street was in the itinerary. My kids excited by the castle! And me, overjoyed that I am in a Main Street vehicle! The driver dropped us off at the Crystal Palace and waved and wished us a Magical Day-it was like being in a Disney commercial.
The Crystal Palace is a beautiful restaurant where every meal comes complete with Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore. Nick is a huge Eeyore fan, and meeting Eeyore was the highlight of our entire trip. We had fantastic seats, right in the middle of the restaurant. The breakfast is served buffet style, so I stood in line to get the girls food while Nick stayed with them at the table. By the time I got both of them breakfast, they had met Tigger and Piglet. So I stayed put until Eeyore came by, so that I would be sure to take the long awaited picture of Nicholas with his hero. It came off beautifully.
The breakfast was very good, and my girls eat a lot more than you might imagine to look at them. Food at Disney is over priced, no matter where you eat. But for a little under a hundred dollars, we got a good breakfast and a chance for Nick's dreams to come true, so it was money well spent.
We left the restaurant a little after nine, and hurried over to Liberty Square to the Haunted Mansion. There was no line. I kind of still can't get over this. I kept saying, this will not happen again today. And then it did. Over and over. Going to Disney at the beginning of October was the best decision, and my sister deserves all of the credit for insisting upon it. I was extremely worried about pulling the girls out of school for a week, but luckily we have two great teachers who sent home all of their work for the week and we would dutifully work on it every night in the hotel.
So, anyway, we go through the Haunted Mansion, which one of my two favorite rides. (The other is the Pirates of the Carribean.) Felicity was freaked out the entire ride. But she wanted to ride it again, so I'm guessing that it won her over. After that, we were to go to Adventureland, per my itinerary. We ran into Chip and Dale on the way, and so we stopped for a picture and two autographs. (If you are not careful, this can take up a lot of time and ruin your itinerary. We only stood in short lines the entire week-15 minutes or less. I found it fairly easy to keep the girls from noticing the characters if the line was long.)
We headed to Adventureland and rode the Magic Carpets of Agraba (which is basically Dumbo with carpets) and went through the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House. (We watched the Swiss Family Robinson before going and that helped the girls to understand that attaction better-Betsy, I should add, is in love with the Swiss Family Robinson now.) We visited with Aladdin and Jasmine (again, short line).
By this time, it was about 5 minutes after 10 AM. We had fastpasses for Splash Mountain from 9:30-10:30 AM and for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad from 10:30-11:30 AM. So we went and rode Splash Mountain (again, Felicity totally freaked) and then Betsy and I rode Big Thunder Mountain. All before 11 AM.
We chose to go over to Tom Sawyer Island after that. I had remembered this as being a super cool playground. It isn't much of one anymore. There isn't much to do-the bridge was closed, and there was just a small playset. If we went back, I wouldn't worry about visiting again.
We watched the Country Bear Jamboree (always one of my favorite things, and again, no one was there, so we had prime seats). The girls and Nick went to the Frontierland Shootin' Arcade. We went back to Adventureland and stood in a 15 minute line (the longest of the day) to ride The Pirates of the Carribean. We also chose to use one of our snack credits at the Aloha snack stand and got Dole Whips. The girls got vanilla, I got pineapple (so, so recommended), and Nick got a pineapple float.
It was time to make our way over to Tomorrowland for our fastpass for Space Mountain. We ran into the Block Party that they have several times a day and so we stopped to watch and dance. Then over to Tommorowland. Again, just Betsy and I rode-Felicity and Nick (aka 'the wimps') waited on us.
Next was our first chance at using the actual fastpass that most people use. To make a long story short, we were able to be a part of a new test phase of "MagicBands"-which I will likely blog about later-and were able then to choose 3 fastpasses from home before we left. We chose the 3 rollarcoasters. But the original fastpasses are still available for now, meaning that we could, in effect, game the system. We went over to the Buzz Lightyear Space Rangers ride, used our room keys (which we used for nothing else the whole week), and got a fastpass for about a half hour later. We went off to ride Stitch's Great Escape, and to the Monsters' Inc. Laugh Floor show, and then came back and rode the Space Rangers with no line. (I'm telling you, the time that we were making was fabulous.) Of these, the Laugh Floor is really cute and the Space Rangers is fun in that it is a game and a ride. Stitch was weird, but not objectionable. We stood in a 10 minute line for Astro Orbitor (Dumbo high up), and then we went to the Carousel of Progress (one of my very of my very favorite rides).
Then we rode the Tomorrowland Speedway. My mom and dad never let us ride this as kids, and I couldn't understand why. After all, we always rode the old cars at Kings Island. It seemed the same thing. It is not. Felicity wanted to drive, and I thought, oh, it's on a track, why not? No. It is on a track that bounces you back and forth if you don't hold the wheel steady. I finally just insisted that I had to drive. Then Betsy, who was in front of us with Nick, kept slowing down. And then I would lose it and we would start bouncing around again. It was worse than bumper cars. Never again.
We were next to Fantasyland then, so we rode the Tea Cups (why not, I was already sick from the cars). We rode the Carousel. Winnie-the-Pooh was closed for a malfunction. So we rode The Little Mermaid, and took in Mickey's Philharmagic. We ate dinner at Pinnochio's (always where we eat) and we got a table by the window and watched the boats going into It's a Small World. It whetted the girls' appetites for riding it, and we immediately got on after dinner. By this time, it was nearing 7 PM. The Electric Light Parade starts at 8 PM, so we headed for Main Street. It was already pretty crowded, so I managed to find just enough room for Nick and me to sit with the girls on our laps toward the front of Main Street. I sat and saved the seats for the hour while Nick and the girls shopped on Main Street. Around a quarter of 8 they came back and joined me and we got to experience the joy of the Electric Light Parade (which is amazing, but quite short). We decided to leave before the fireworks, and got on a ferry boat for the Grand Floridian. We called Mom and Dad to meet us, and they came down to the ferry dock and we sat and watched the fireworks. It was a beautiful ending to such a beautiful day.
Of course, in reality, it was not the ending. We climbed on the monorail to go back to the Transportation and Ticket Center, and managed to get in a crowded car with a group of teenagers who did not speak English but who did scream at the top of their lungs the entire way. We wearily climbed into the car and drove back to our hotel. I can't remember if we got lost, but we likely did, as that happened more often than not. But someday, I won't remember any of that. I'll remember sitting with my family watching fireworks. I'll remember no lines. And mostly, I'll remember that man waving and saying, "Have a magical day!" Indeed.
So, off we went. Our breakfast reservations were for 8:15 AM. The guide book recommended leaving 45 minutes early. This seemed silly to me at the time. We were not there when it was crowded, we didn't have to deal with traffic. However, we barely made it. Parking was easy-but you are parking at the Transportation and Ticket Center. Then you have to get on the monorail and go through the Polynesian and the Grand Floridian-and, much to my surprise, the monorails move pretty slowly first thing in the morning. We were still sitting on it at 5 after 8 and I was trying very hard not to panic.
We disembarked the monorail, headed for the ticket gate for people with breakfast reservations (leaving the people waiting for the park to open at 9 in the dust), and hurried inside. And then the most magical part of our entire vacation happened: a man was standing just inside the park, with a Main Street vehicle, and said, "Where are you headed?" "The Crystal Palace." "Would you like a ride?"
I was thrilled! I have never ridden in a Main Street vehicle before. We rode along Main Street, my husband simply overwhelmed by everything, asking if visiting the stores on Main Street was in the itinerary. My kids excited by the castle! And me, overjoyed that I am in a Main Street vehicle! The driver dropped us off at the Crystal Palace and waved and wished us a Magical Day-it was like being in a Disney commercial.
The Crystal Palace is a beautiful restaurant where every meal comes complete with Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore. Nick is a huge Eeyore fan, and meeting Eeyore was the highlight of our entire trip. We had fantastic seats, right in the middle of the restaurant. The breakfast is served buffet style, so I stood in line to get the girls food while Nick stayed with them at the table. By the time I got both of them breakfast, they had met Tigger and Piglet. So I stayed put until Eeyore came by, so that I would be sure to take the long awaited picture of Nicholas with his hero. It came off beautifully.
The breakfast was very good, and my girls eat a lot more than you might imagine to look at them. Food at Disney is over priced, no matter where you eat. But for a little under a hundred dollars, we got a good breakfast and a chance for Nick's dreams to come true, so it was money well spent.
We left the restaurant a little after nine, and hurried over to Liberty Square to the Haunted Mansion. There was no line. I kind of still can't get over this. I kept saying, this will not happen again today. And then it did. Over and over. Going to Disney at the beginning of October was the best decision, and my sister deserves all of the credit for insisting upon it. I was extremely worried about pulling the girls out of school for a week, but luckily we have two great teachers who sent home all of their work for the week and we would dutifully work on it every night in the hotel.
So, anyway, we go through the Haunted Mansion, which one of my two favorite rides. (The other is the Pirates of the Carribean.) Felicity was freaked out the entire ride. But she wanted to ride it again, so I'm guessing that it won her over. After that, we were to go to Adventureland, per my itinerary. We ran into Chip and Dale on the way, and so we stopped for a picture and two autographs. (If you are not careful, this can take up a lot of time and ruin your itinerary. We only stood in short lines the entire week-15 minutes or less. I found it fairly easy to keep the girls from noticing the characters if the line was long.)
We headed to Adventureland and rode the Magic Carpets of Agraba (which is basically Dumbo with carpets) and went through the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House. (We watched the Swiss Family Robinson before going and that helped the girls to understand that attaction better-Betsy, I should add, is in love with the Swiss Family Robinson now.) We visited with Aladdin and Jasmine (again, short line).
By this time, it was about 5 minutes after 10 AM. We had fastpasses for Splash Mountain from 9:30-10:30 AM and for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad from 10:30-11:30 AM. So we went and rode Splash Mountain (again, Felicity totally freaked) and then Betsy and I rode Big Thunder Mountain. All before 11 AM.
We chose to go over to Tom Sawyer Island after that. I had remembered this as being a super cool playground. It isn't much of one anymore. There isn't much to do-the bridge was closed, and there was just a small playset. If we went back, I wouldn't worry about visiting again.
We watched the Country Bear Jamboree (always one of my favorite things, and again, no one was there, so we had prime seats). The girls and Nick went to the Frontierland Shootin' Arcade. We went back to Adventureland and stood in a 15 minute line (the longest of the day) to ride The Pirates of the Carribean. We also chose to use one of our snack credits at the Aloha snack stand and got Dole Whips. The girls got vanilla, I got pineapple (so, so recommended), and Nick got a pineapple float.
It was time to make our way over to Tomorrowland for our fastpass for Space Mountain. We ran into the Block Party that they have several times a day and so we stopped to watch and dance. Then over to Tommorowland. Again, just Betsy and I rode-Felicity and Nick (aka 'the wimps') waited on us.
Next was our first chance at using the actual fastpass that most people use. To make a long story short, we were able to be a part of a new test phase of "MagicBands"-which I will likely blog about later-and were able then to choose 3 fastpasses from home before we left. We chose the 3 rollarcoasters. But the original fastpasses are still available for now, meaning that we could, in effect, game the system. We went over to the Buzz Lightyear Space Rangers ride, used our room keys (which we used for nothing else the whole week), and got a fastpass for about a half hour later. We went off to ride Stitch's Great Escape, and to the Monsters' Inc. Laugh Floor show, and then came back and rode the Space Rangers with no line. (I'm telling you, the time that we were making was fabulous.) Of these, the Laugh Floor is really cute and the Space Rangers is fun in that it is a game and a ride. Stitch was weird, but not objectionable. We stood in a 10 minute line for Astro Orbitor (Dumbo high up), and then we went to the Carousel of Progress (one of my very of my very favorite rides).
Then we rode the Tomorrowland Speedway. My mom and dad never let us ride this as kids, and I couldn't understand why. After all, we always rode the old cars at Kings Island. It seemed the same thing. It is not. Felicity wanted to drive, and I thought, oh, it's on a track, why not? No. It is on a track that bounces you back and forth if you don't hold the wheel steady. I finally just insisted that I had to drive. Then Betsy, who was in front of us with Nick, kept slowing down. And then I would lose it and we would start bouncing around again. It was worse than bumper cars. Never again.
We were next to Fantasyland then, so we rode the Tea Cups (why not, I was already sick from the cars). We rode the Carousel. Winnie-the-Pooh was closed for a malfunction. So we rode The Little Mermaid, and took in Mickey's Philharmagic. We ate dinner at Pinnochio's (always where we eat) and we got a table by the window and watched the boats going into It's a Small World. It whetted the girls' appetites for riding it, and we immediately got on after dinner. By this time, it was nearing 7 PM. The Electric Light Parade starts at 8 PM, so we headed for Main Street. It was already pretty crowded, so I managed to find just enough room for Nick and me to sit with the girls on our laps toward the front of Main Street. I sat and saved the seats for the hour while Nick and the girls shopped on Main Street. Around a quarter of 8 they came back and joined me and we got to experience the joy of the Electric Light Parade (which is amazing, but quite short). We decided to leave before the fireworks, and got on a ferry boat for the Grand Floridian. We called Mom and Dad to meet us, and they came down to the ferry dock and we sat and watched the fireworks. It was a beautiful ending to such a beautiful day.
Of course, in reality, it was not the ending. We climbed on the monorail to go back to the Transportation and Ticket Center, and managed to get in a crowded car with a group of teenagers who did not speak English but who did scream at the top of their lungs the entire way. We wearily climbed into the car and drove back to our hotel. I can't remember if we got lost, but we likely did, as that happened more often than not. But someday, I won't remember any of that. I'll remember sitting with my family watching fireworks. I'll remember no lines. And mostly, I'll remember that man waving and saying, "Have a magical day!" Indeed.
الأربعاء، 16 أكتوبر 2013
Day One: Shopping, Getting Lost, and Having a Fabulous Time
I have hemmed and hawed about the best way to go about writing these blogs. Should I go day by day, group them by subject, do big overviews and then tiny details? Which is all quite silly, and so as of right now I'm going to go day by day. And then if I think that something warrants a whole post, I'll add it in.
So, to begin, getting to Disney World is an ordeal. Flying would be ideal, although it is considerably more expensive and we would have to figure out how to get around once we got there. I knew that we would want the van once we got there, and that proved true with every passing day. So the only option was to drive. My dad and Nick traded off on all of the driving, the girls sat in the back with RubberMade tubs full of things to do, and my mom and I tried to survive. We watched all of Spin and Marty, the Annette serial, a week's worth of (the real, old) Mickey Mouse Club, and Freaky Friday. Watsons' pack food like we are going to be marooned on a small island for a month, so we did a lot of snacking. We stopped every two to three hours, and we managed to eat real food in sit down restaurants for at least one meal each day. On the way down, we traveled through Kentucky, Tenneesse, and Georgia. We left at 6 AM on Saturday morning, and we made it to Macon, Georgia by 8 PM.
We stopped at Stone Mountain along the way. If you have never seen it, I highly recommend it. My family has been there twice before, and we have always enjoyed it. It costs $10 to park your car, but other than that, it is free to see the mountain. (There are other things to do there, if you are so inclined, and they cost extra-like going up to the top of the mountain-I've done that and it is scary if you are at all afraid of heights.) There is an extremely cool laser light show every evening in the summer, and at certain other times of the year. I thought that we were going on a day that there was no light show. However, when we got there and it was packed, it became apparent that my father had simply not told me that there was one-he knew that I would want to stay. And since the Buckeyes were playing, that wasn't an option.
The next morning we left around 6:30 AM (we ate our continental breakfast first) and headed to Disney World. We got there around 1 PM. And we headed to our hotel, Pop Century. Pop Century is a value hotel, which means that it is cheap by Disney standards. It also means that it is on the outskirts of the property, which made having the van a luxury during the week. Now, when I say that it is cheap, I don't mean at all that it is not a nice hotel. It was a very nice hotel, with cute Disney touches and several pools, which is more than what we needed. We did not spend much time at our hotel.
An important note about the hotel-a refrigerator is not included in a standard room at Pop Century. My brother-in-law did get one by saying that he needed it for his diabetes medication. But we did not have one, and so my original idea of eating cereal for breakfast every morning got slightly derailed. We ended up eating the cereal dry, but that also turned out to be a good thing-it was portable that way, and we would take it with us in the car on the way to whichever park we were going.
Now, if you are thinking about planning a Disney vacation, and wondering if you should stay on property, let me influence you: DO IT! It is so much easier to stay on property. If you are staying at a Disney resort, you get free parking at the theme parks. That alone is a savings. If you don't want to bring a vehicle with you, there is tranportation available to all Disney places. And basically, because after a long day at the park, you don't want to have to drive a long way to go to bed.
My parents stayed at the Grand Floridian, which is my favorite hotel ever. I have been blessed to stay there twice in my life. It is so beautiful-even sitting in the lobby is fun, listening to the piano or the band and watching the people. It is also by far the most expensive hotel, and therefore I am never going to stay there again unless I win the lottery-so, not going to happen. However, as my sister says, for our two families, it made so much more sense to stay in the value hotel, because we weren't in the room very much. My parents, on the other hand, only went to the park one day, and spent the rest of their days enjoying the hotel. So, my advice would be to think about what you are paying for and how much you are going to use it.
I have also stayed at the Contemporary and Shades of Green (which was called The Disney Inn at the time). Both are nice, although only military can stay at Shades of Green now. The Comtemporary and the Polynesian, which are both on the monorail with the Grand Floridian, are nice but, to me at least, they are showing their age. They need updated. Nick and I also got to go to Fort Wilderness, which is where you can stay in a cabin or bring your own RV. We both agreed that we loved it, and that if we would ever be able to go back, that would be right up our alley. Staying at Disney in an RV is actually quite affordable, comparitively speaking.
Okay, so, back to our first day. We checked in, looked around our immediate area (Pop Century is divided into decades, we were in the 1970s), and then headed to Downtown Disney. Downtown Disney is a shopping complex with restaurants and other fun things, like a bowling alley and Cirque de Soleil. With our room, we got two vouchers to DisneyQuest, which is a virtual reality/arcade that costs around $40 for an adult ticket. Needless to say, I wanted to be sure that we used these vouchers, since they were worth a good bit. So Betsy and Nick headed to that, while I took Felicity for a day of shopping.
Nick and Betsy had a blast. They were able to play for 2 hours, and they had a fantastic time. The only thing that would have been nice to know beforehand was that you have to be 52 inches tall for some of the attractions. Betsy is 51 inches tall, and there is apparently no bend in this rule. Still, it was time well spent.
Felicity and I had a lot of fun too. We had 2 hours to kill, so we took our time. There are lots of things just to see, even without buying much. There is a very cool Lego store with all kinds of Disney characters made out of Legos. We also shopped at The World of Disney, which is a huge Disney store. We bought our autograph books here, because if you are going to Disney with kids, you have to have an autograph book. Felicity picked out a Tinkerbell autograph book, and I picked out the regular Mickey Mouse one for Betsy. Just to let you know, it's a good idea to look at the inside of the book before buying it. The Tinkerbell book had a place for a picture on the back of every page, plus it had less pages. In the end, Felicity's book got full before the week was over, and I wasn't about to buy her another one, so she and Betsy have to "share" several autographs. If I had it to do over, I would have bought both of them the same Mickey book.
We also went to a really cute store called Little Mismatched, which sells socks in groups of 3. (But be forwarned, they only sell Disney socks for older girls, so I had to buy Felicity cute-but not Disney-socks.) They also have a very nice Christmas store, where I bought our Christmas ornament (we always buy an ornament on every vacation). And there was a store called Stitch in Time, where you could buy Mouse Ears and have them embroidered. Felicity picked out Minnie Mouse ones, and we bought Betsy Mickey Mouse ones. There was also a small carousel, which cost $2 a ride.
Felicity is still little enough that it doesn't really occur to her that Betsy was doing a lot more fun stuff than riding a small carousel, but that is what makes it fun. It was nice to spend some time with just Felicity, who was thrilled at just the statues of Disney princesses, never realizing that during the course of the week we would actually be meeting these same princesses. And Betsy had a blast with Nick, because she always loves having all of Nick's attention. They even got their picture taken in one of those photo booths. It was a great day.
We left around 5, with a goal of going to Fort Wilderness for a campfire sing-a-long with Chip and Dale. The campfire started at 7:30, and it was good that we had so much time, because we got lost. First off, and this is important, if you are going to a Magic Kingdom area hotel, you need to be in the right hand lane going through the parking lot toll. Nothing tells you this until you are already through the toll. We learned this the hard way and had to circle around twice before we got in the right lane. Second, once you get to Fort Wilderness for the campfire, you are headed for the area in the middle of the campground. Again, we didn't see this, and we went the wrong way and ended up doing a lot more walking than was necessary.
That said, it was worth it. The campfire sing-a-long is presented every night at Fort Wilderness and it is free. Let me tell you, I cannot think of a single other thing that we did the whole week that was free. When you get there, they have the campfire started and if you want to, you can buy the ingredients for s'mores, which cost $13. We did do this, but you get to keep the rather generous helping of marshmellows, so I thought it was justified. At 8 PM, the song leader comes out with Chip and Dale and starts singing. All good, old fashioned campfire songs. And then Chip and Dale comes around a meet you. You only get to meet one chipmunk up close, but still, it is a free character greeting. The girls had a blast.
We capped off our day by going to the Grand Floridian and seeing Mom and Dad's room. We also, just by luck, figured out that we could watch the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom from the boat dock there. They were the Halloween fireworks that night, and they are spectacular. It was a great ending for a wonderful day.
If you are planning a trip to Disney, I would recommend starting your vacation in a similar way. It was relaxed and not hurried. It felt like a vacation, which was not so much true for the rest of the trip (not that we didn't have fun, but it's not relaxed once you get to the parks). The one thing that I would have liked to do that we never did get around to was miniture golfing, which my sister did with her family this first day. We had vouchers for that too, which cost around $12 for an adult. The golf courses are really cute, we just never found enough time to do it. But it would also make for a fun, easy first day.
My point-enjoy this nice, leisurely day. Because we are headed to the Magic Kingdom and things are going to liven up quick.
So, to begin, getting to Disney World is an ordeal. Flying would be ideal, although it is considerably more expensive and we would have to figure out how to get around once we got there. I knew that we would want the van once we got there, and that proved true with every passing day. So the only option was to drive. My dad and Nick traded off on all of the driving, the girls sat in the back with RubberMade tubs full of things to do, and my mom and I tried to survive. We watched all of Spin and Marty, the Annette serial, a week's worth of (the real, old) Mickey Mouse Club, and Freaky Friday. Watsons' pack food like we are going to be marooned on a small island for a month, so we did a lot of snacking. We stopped every two to three hours, and we managed to eat real food in sit down restaurants for at least one meal each day. On the way down, we traveled through Kentucky, Tenneesse, and Georgia. We left at 6 AM on Saturday morning, and we made it to Macon, Georgia by 8 PM.
We stopped at Stone Mountain along the way. If you have never seen it, I highly recommend it. My family has been there twice before, and we have always enjoyed it. It costs $10 to park your car, but other than that, it is free to see the mountain. (There are other things to do there, if you are so inclined, and they cost extra-like going up to the top of the mountain-I've done that and it is scary if you are at all afraid of heights.) There is an extremely cool laser light show every evening in the summer, and at certain other times of the year. I thought that we were going on a day that there was no light show. However, when we got there and it was packed, it became apparent that my father had simply not told me that there was one-he knew that I would want to stay. And since the Buckeyes were playing, that wasn't an option.
The next morning we left around 6:30 AM (we ate our continental breakfast first) and headed to Disney World. We got there around 1 PM. And we headed to our hotel, Pop Century. Pop Century is a value hotel, which means that it is cheap by Disney standards. It also means that it is on the outskirts of the property, which made having the van a luxury during the week. Now, when I say that it is cheap, I don't mean at all that it is not a nice hotel. It was a very nice hotel, with cute Disney touches and several pools, which is more than what we needed. We did not spend much time at our hotel.
An important note about the hotel-a refrigerator is not included in a standard room at Pop Century. My brother-in-law did get one by saying that he needed it for his diabetes medication. But we did not have one, and so my original idea of eating cereal for breakfast every morning got slightly derailed. We ended up eating the cereal dry, but that also turned out to be a good thing-it was portable that way, and we would take it with us in the car on the way to whichever park we were going.
Now, if you are thinking about planning a Disney vacation, and wondering if you should stay on property, let me influence you: DO IT! It is so much easier to stay on property. If you are staying at a Disney resort, you get free parking at the theme parks. That alone is a savings. If you don't want to bring a vehicle with you, there is tranportation available to all Disney places. And basically, because after a long day at the park, you don't want to have to drive a long way to go to bed.
My parents stayed at the Grand Floridian, which is my favorite hotel ever. I have been blessed to stay there twice in my life. It is so beautiful-even sitting in the lobby is fun, listening to the piano or the band and watching the people. It is also by far the most expensive hotel, and therefore I am never going to stay there again unless I win the lottery-so, not going to happen. However, as my sister says, for our two families, it made so much more sense to stay in the value hotel, because we weren't in the room very much. My parents, on the other hand, only went to the park one day, and spent the rest of their days enjoying the hotel. So, my advice would be to think about what you are paying for and how much you are going to use it.
I have also stayed at the Contemporary and Shades of Green (which was called The Disney Inn at the time). Both are nice, although only military can stay at Shades of Green now. The Comtemporary and the Polynesian, which are both on the monorail with the Grand Floridian, are nice but, to me at least, they are showing their age. They need updated. Nick and I also got to go to Fort Wilderness, which is where you can stay in a cabin or bring your own RV. We both agreed that we loved it, and that if we would ever be able to go back, that would be right up our alley. Staying at Disney in an RV is actually quite affordable, comparitively speaking.
Okay, so, back to our first day. We checked in, looked around our immediate area (Pop Century is divided into decades, we were in the 1970s), and then headed to Downtown Disney. Downtown Disney is a shopping complex with restaurants and other fun things, like a bowling alley and Cirque de Soleil. With our room, we got two vouchers to DisneyQuest, which is a virtual reality/arcade that costs around $40 for an adult ticket. Needless to say, I wanted to be sure that we used these vouchers, since they were worth a good bit. So Betsy and Nick headed to that, while I took Felicity for a day of shopping.
Nick and Betsy had a blast. They were able to play for 2 hours, and they had a fantastic time. The only thing that would have been nice to know beforehand was that you have to be 52 inches tall for some of the attractions. Betsy is 51 inches tall, and there is apparently no bend in this rule. Still, it was time well spent.
Felicity and I had a lot of fun too. We had 2 hours to kill, so we took our time. There are lots of things just to see, even without buying much. There is a very cool Lego store with all kinds of Disney characters made out of Legos. We also shopped at The World of Disney, which is a huge Disney store. We bought our autograph books here, because if you are going to Disney with kids, you have to have an autograph book. Felicity picked out a Tinkerbell autograph book, and I picked out the regular Mickey Mouse one for Betsy. Just to let you know, it's a good idea to look at the inside of the book before buying it. The Tinkerbell book had a place for a picture on the back of every page, plus it had less pages. In the end, Felicity's book got full before the week was over, and I wasn't about to buy her another one, so she and Betsy have to "share" several autographs. If I had it to do over, I would have bought both of them the same Mickey book.
We also went to a really cute store called Little Mismatched, which sells socks in groups of 3. (But be forwarned, they only sell Disney socks for older girls, so I had to buy Felicity cute-but not Disney-socks.) They also have a very nice Christmas store, where I bought our Christmas ornament (we always buy an ornament on every vacation). And there was a store called Stitch in Time, where you could buy Mouse Ears and have them embroidered. Felicity picked out Minnie Mouse ones, and we bought Betsy Mickey Mouse ones. There was also a small carousel, which cost $2 a ride.
Felicity is still little enough that it doesn't really occur to her that Betsy was doing a lot more fun stuff than riding a small carousel, but that is what makes it fun. It was nice to spend some time with just Felicity, who was thrilled at just the statues of Disney princesses, never realizing that during the course of the week we would actually be meeting these same princesses. And Betsy had a blast with Nick, because she always loves having all of Nick's attention. They even got their picture taken in one of those photo booths. It was a great day.
We left around 5, with a goal of going to Fort Wilderness for a campfire sing-a-long with Chip and Dale. The campfire started at 7:30, and it was good that we had so much time, because we got lost. First off, and this is important, if you are going to a Magic Kingdom area hotel, you need to be in the right hand lane going through the parking lot toll. Nothing tells you this until you are already through the toll. We learned this the hard way and had to circle around twice before we got in the right lane. Second, once you get to Fort Wilderness for the campfire, you are headed for the area in the middle of the campground. Again, we didn't see this, and we went the wrong way and ended up doing a lot more walking than was necessary.
That said, it was worth it. The campfire sing-a-long is presented every night at Fort Wilderness and it is free. Let me tell you, I cannot think of a single other thing that we did the whole week that was free. When you get there, they have the campfire started and if you want to, you can buy the ingredients for s'mores, which cost $13. We did do this, but you get to keep the rather generous helping of marshmellows, so I thought it was justified. At 8 PM, the song leader comes out with Chip and Dale and starts singing. All good, old fashioned campfire songs. And then Chip and Dale comes around a meet you. You only get to meet one chipmunk up close, but still, it is a free character greeting. The girls had a blast.
We capped off our day by going to the Grand Floridian and seeing Mom and Dad's room. We also, just by luck, figured out that we could watch the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom from the boat dock there. They were the Halloween fireworks that night, and they are spectacular. It was a great ending for a wonderful day.
If you are planning a trip to Disney, I would recommend starting your vacation in a similar way. It was relaxed and not hurried. It felt like a vacation, which was not so much true for the rest of the trip (not that we didn't have fun, but it's not relaxed once you get to the parks). The one thing that I would have liked to do that we never did get around to was miniture golfing, which my sister did with her family this first day. We had vouchers for that too, which cost around $12 for an adult. The golf courses are really cute, we just never found enough time to do it. But it would also make for a fun, easy first day.
My point-enjoy this nice, leisurely day. Because we are headed to the Magic Kingdom and things are going to liven up quick.
الخميس، 10 أكتوبر 2013
Grab your ears, it's time for cheers...
So, this blog post is a little long in coming. All last week, as we traveled all over the Disney resort, I kept thinking about all the helpful blog posts that I would write. After all, I no longer had a trip to prepare for, obsess over, create itinerairies for, etc. However, I kind of forgot how ridiculously busy this life of a mom/substitute teacher can be. And I only subbed once this week! Between MOPs, PTO and PTA drama, 3rd grade Family Fun Night, a bedroom filled with bees, Daisy preparation, Bible Study for the women's meeting, and just our normal two nights of dance and one night of soccer-this is the soonest that I could get to it.
But enough about that. This is a fun blog! A blog about truly my favorite place on earth after Rix Mills-Disney World! (I am well aware that there are people who will judge me for that statement. There are people who love Disney and people who hate it and people in the middle-I'm sorry, but I'm on the love, love, love, if I were rich I would go every year side.)
I have always loved Disney World. I first went when I was 3. My memories consist of Cinderella castle, getting a Donald Duck hat (not Mouse Ears like everyone else because that is how my parents roll), and falling through an inner tube and my dad having to gallantly jump into the pool to rescue me. That's about it.
I went again when I was 5 and kind of remember the same hazy memories. To be completely honest, I remember a lot more about the pool at our hotel on that trip.
The point is, I don't have a lot of memories from my early Disney trips. And my parents wisely remembered that, and we all decided several years ago, that if they were paying, we would go when the oldest two girls were about 8. I was 9 on my first Disney trip that I really remember, and then I went again at 11, 13, 15, and 18.
The girls were definately the best ages to be at the parks. They are 8 and 5. Betsy was old enough (and tall enough) to ride everything she wanted to, which was great for me, because no one else in my entire family will ride rollercoasters. Felicity was still scared enough of big rides to be perfectly fine with the fact that she was too short to ride a lot of them. And Nick, who is a wuss when it comes to heights of any kind, was content to stay with her while Betsy and I had tons of fun.
Also, they are still young enough that Disney is magical. Because it just is. Yes, they both get that they are people in costumes. But it doesn't matter to them, any more than it mattered to Nick, who was elated on our 2nd day there to meet Eeyore in person!
So anyway, all of that is to say, if you are feeling guilty because you haven't been to Disney and your kids are getting older, don't fret about it. It is a wonderful vacation no matter how old you are.
Now, this particular blog post is about planning a Disney vacation. I'm going to do a whole series of them, from the best places to eat, to the best intineraries to follow, to how to pick the best hotel. Why? Because I want to. And if someone, even one person, gets something out of it-cool.
So, planning a Disney vacation can be overwhelming if you are a Type A, schedule everything kind of gal. Which I happen to be. It helped immensely that I had been there before and knew my way around 3 of the parks. This became glaringly obvious when we got to Animal Kingdom, which I had never been to, and I had to shift around a lot of my plans and we had to do a lot of running.
My first suggestion, as always, is to arm yourself with a book. The two that I found most helpful were:
1) Birnbaum Guides 2013 Walt Disney World-this is the official guidebook. The layout of this book is great. It has big maps, details about every ride and attraction grouped together by "land," and it's just pretty. That said, it is the "official" book for a reason. It doesn't say anything negative about anything Disney ever. Which is why you also need...
2) The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2013 by Bob Sehlinger and Len Testa-this book is the bomb. It anticipates every question an anal retentive planner could have, like, how long does every single attraction last? How exactly does one trade pins? Is it worth my time to try to squeeze in miniture golf/Disney Quest/a campfire sing along with Chip and Dale? It also has lots of maps, which Nick and I needed and relyed on, because our hotel (being a "value" hotel) was on the outskirts of nearly everything and we tended to get lost. I cannot say enough good things about this book.
Now then, you also want to check out some websites. First, of course, you have to use Disney's own website because they make you. Once you have made your reservations, you have to use their website to make your dining reservations, use Fastpass+, and to customize your MagicBands. I have basically nothing good to say about Disney's website. It is pretty to look at, but fairly useless. We had a terrible time getting all of our reservations to show up, to link our reservations to my mom and dad, and my sister's family, and just basically anytime at all that we had to use it. Which was all the time. The website is the only thing that I think was truly terrible about my planning experience. I have told them so on several questionaires, and we have had to call multiple times to straighten things out, so perhaps they will see the error of their ways. In the meantime, just know that everything else about your trip will seem easy compared to using that website.
However, there are some very good and useful websites. Easywdw.com is easily my favorite. It is snidely funny in it's observations, but this man must go to Disney World every day of his life. He has a crowd calendar (that I ignored, but that is another post), updates about merchandise, updates about new restaurants, ride referbishments, etc. I highly recommend it.
DisneyTouristBlog.com is another good blog that is in a similar vein. Lots of tips, lots of pictures, lots of how to best maximize line times (this took up huge amounts of my planning time).
Okay, so then, I made my Disney Intinerary Binder! It sends shivers down my spine. I took a three ring binder, found some super cute Mickey stickers at Hobby Lobby to dress it up, and filled it with our itinerary for each day, a list of the restaurants on the Disney Dining Plan, a schedule of events for the the halloween party, a schedule of times for shows at each park, a list of food available at the Food and Wine Festival, and where all you can get different pennies pressed with different characters (for my family this is a big part of every vacation.)
It was a necessary part of every day. Fastpass alone will be a whole other blog post, but with this new Fastpass+ system, you have to know what time you made your fastpass for. Normal people own iPhones and can use the app. I, however, can not afford such luxuries. So the binder was a needed and necessary part of every day.
Now, the other very fun part of planning was creating a countdown calendar for Betsy and Felicity. I found a cute one on Pinterest that was easy to make. You just use contruction paper to make a Mickey Mouse (black paper with ears, red with chalk buttons, yellow and then white). On the white paper I wrote a Disney activity to do. I'm not the craftiest person, so a lot of them were Disney coloring sheets and word finds that I googled online. We did make Tigger sticks (marshmellows covered in orange icing with black icing stripes-the girls like making them better than eating them). And we had Mickey Mouse pancakes the night before we left (Nick just winged it and they looked really cute). These are all on my facebook page (a smart person would figure out how to put pictures on here, but they are there, so hey).
Counting down was the most fun thing. The two very best were the strips that said "Get a Disney Gift!" For the first gift, I bought them a Birnbaum's Guide to Disney for Kids. It is a shorter version of the adult book, with places to write your favorites rides and what you want to do. They loved this, and it helped them to know what all would await us when we got there.
The second gift was a landyard of pins for trading. If you are at all interested in pin trading, this is the way to do it. (I got this idea from a pin that led me to a blog, but my Disney Pinterest board hasn't been working, so I don't know where.) First, do not buy any starter set of pins from Disney! They are like $30 for 4 pins on a lanyard. Way overpriced. Go to ebay, and they sell lots of 25, 50, 100-whatever you want. I bought 50 pins for $22.50-so each girl got 25 pins. It does not in the least matter what kind of pins end up coming to your door. Disney cast members will trade you good pins for junky ones-trust me. Then Nick found very nice Mickey Mouse lanyards, with a change purse attached, for $7 a piece on Amazon. They were perfect. The girls were excited with this gift, because it was a gift and Mickey and all, but none of us, including me, knew that they would make for one of the best memories of our vacation.
And I'll go into all of that in another blog. This one has gotten a touch out of hand. But I want to say, this vacation was the best vacation I've ever had. Perfect weather, few lines, a nice hotel-we could not have asked for more. My parents have gifted me with so many things in my life. But the best gifts, that I hope they know how grateful I am for, are the gifts that they give me to give my children. And that is exactly how they do it. My parents allow me always to be the one giving, they are content to stand to the side and watch, and that makes them extraordinary. This gift, of watching my kids and my husband experience such a magical trip, was one I will treasure for all of my life.
But enough about that. This is a fun blog! A blog about truly my favorite place on earth after Rix Mills-Disney World! (I am well aware that there are people who will judge me for that statement. There are people who love Disney and people who hate it and people in the middle-I'm sorry, but I'm on the love, love, love, if I were rich I would go every year side.)
I have always loved Disney World. I first went when I was 3. My memories consist of Cinderella castle, getting a Donald Duck hat (not Mouse Ears like everyone else because that is how my parents roll), and falling through an inner tube and my dad having to gallantly jump into the pool to rescue me. That's about it.
I went again when I was 5 and kind of remember the same hazy memories. To be completely honest, I remember a lot more about the pool at our hotel on that trip.
The point is, I don't have a lot of memories from my early Disney trips. And my parents wisely remembered that, and we all decided several years ago, that if they were paying, we would go when the oldest two girls were about 8. I was 9 on my first Disney trip that I really remember, and then I went again at 11, 13, 15, and 18.
The girls were definately the best ages to be at the parks. They are 8 and 5. Betsy was old enough (and tall enough) to ride everything she wanted to, which was great for me, because no one else in my entire family will ride rollercoasters. Felicity was still scared enough of big rides to be perfectly fine with the fact that she was too short to ride a lot of them. And Nick, who is a wuss when it comes to heights of any kind, was content to stay with her while Betsy and I had tons of fun.
Also, they are still young enough that Disney is magical. Because it just is. Yes, they both get that they are people in costumes. But it doesn't matter to them, any more than it mattered to Nick, who was elated on our 2nd day there to meet Eeyore in person!
So anyway, all of that is to say, if you are feeling guilty because you haven't been to Disney and your kids are getting older, don't fret about it. It is a wonderful vacation no matter how old you are.
Now, this particular blog post is about planning a Disney vacation. I'm going to do a whole series of them, from the best places to eat, to the best intineraries to follow, to how to pick the best hotel. Why? Because I want to. And if someone, even one person, gets something out of it-cool.
So, planning a Disney vacation can be overwhelming if you are a Type A, schedule everything kind of gal. Which I happen to be. It helped immensely that I had been there before and knew my way around 3 of the parks. This became glaringly obvious when we got to Animal Kingdom, which I had never been to, and I had to shift around a lot of my plans and we had to do a lot of running.
My first suggestion, as always, is to arm yourself with a book. The two that I found most helpful were:
1) Birnbaum Guides 2013 Walt Disney World-this is the official guidebook. The layout of this book is great. It has big maps, details about every ride and attraction grouped together by "land," and it's just pretty. That said, it is the "official" book for a reason. It doesn't say anything negative about anything Disney ever. Which is why you also need...
2) The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2013 by Bob Sehlinger and Len Testa-this book is the bomb. It anticipates every question an anal retentive planner could have, like, how long does every single attraction last? How exactly does one trade pins? Is it worth my time to try to squeeze in miniture golf/Disney Quest/a campfire sing along with Chip and Dale? It also has lots of maps, which Nick and I needed and relyed on, because our hotel (being a "value" hotel) was on the outskirts of nearly everything and we tended to get lost. I cannot say enough good things about this book.
Now then, you also want to check out some websites. First, of course, you have to use Disney's own website because they make you. Once you have made your reservations, you have to use their website to make your dining reservations, use Fastpass+, and to customize your MagicBands. I have basically nothing good to say about Disney's website. It is pretty to look at, but fairly useless. We had a terrible time getting all of our reservations to show up, to link our reservations to my mom and dad, and my sister's family, and just basically anytime at all that we had to use it. Which was all the time. The website is the only thing that I think was truly terrible about my planning experience. I have told them so on several questionaires, and we have had to call multiple times to straighten things out, so perhaps they will see the error of their ways. In the meantime, just know that everything else about your trip will seem easy compared to using that website.
However, there are some very good and useful websites. Easywdw.com is easily my favorite. It is snidely funny in it's observations, but this man must go to Disney World every day of his life. He has a crowd calendar (that I ignored, but that is another post), updates about merchandise, updates about new restaurants, ride referbishments, etc. I highly recommend it.
DisneyTouristBlog.com is another good blog that is in a similar vein. Lots of tips, lots of pictures, lots of how to best maximize line times (this took up huge amounts of my planning time).
Okay, so then, I made my Disney Intinerary Binder! It sends shivers down my spine. I took a three ring binder, found some super cute Mickey stickers at Hobby Lobby to dress it up, and filled it with our itinerary for each day, a list of the restaurants on the Disney Dining Plan, a schedule of events for the the halloween party, a schedule of times for shows at each park, a list of food available at the Food and Wine Festival, and where all you can get different pennies pressed with different characters (for my family this is a big part of every vacation.)
It was a necessary part of every day. Fastpass alone will be a whole other blog post, but with this new Fastpass+ system, you have to know what time you made your fastpass for. Normal people own iPhones and can use the app. I, however, can not afford such luxuries. So the binder was a needed and necessary part of every day.
Now, the other very fun part of planning was creating a countdown calendar for Betsy and Felicity. I found a cute one on Pinterest that was easy to make. You just use contruction paper to make a Mickey Mouse (black paper with ears, red with chalk buttons, yellow and then white). On the white paper I wrote a Disney activity to do. I'm not the craftiest person, so a lot of them were Disney coloring sheets and word finds that I googled online. We did make Tigger sticks (marshmellows covered in orange icing with black icing stripes-the girls like making them better than eating them). And we had Mickey Mouse pancakes the night before we left (Nick just winged it and they looked really cute). These are all on my facebook page (a smart person would figure out how to put pictures on here, but they are there, so hey).
Counting down was the most fun thing. The two very best were the strips that said "Get a Disney Gift!" For the first gift, I bought them a Birnbaum's Guide to Disney for Kids. It is a shorter version of the adult book, with places to write your favorites rides and what you want to do. They loved this, and it helped them to know what all would await us when we got there.
The second gift was a landyard of pins for trading. If you are at all interested in pin trading, this is the way to do it. (I got this idea from a pin that led me to a blog, but my Disney Pinterest board hasn't been working, so I don't know where.) First, do not buy any starter set of pins from Disney! They are like $30 for 4 pins on a lanyard. Way overpriced. Go to ebay, and they sell lots of 25, 50, 100-whatever you want. I bought 50 pins for $22.50-so each girl got 25 pins. It does not in the least matter what kind of pins end up coming to your door. Disney cast members will trade you good pins for junky ones-trust me. Then Nick found very nice Mickey Mouse lanyards, with a change purse attached, for $7 a piece on Amazon. They were perfect. The girls were excited with this gift, because it was a gift and Mickey and all, but none of us, including me, knew that they would make for one of the best memories of our vacation.
And I'll go into all of that in another blog. This one has gotten a touch out of hand. But I want to say, this vacation was the best vacation I've ever had. Perfect weather, few lines, a nice hotel-we could not have asked for more. My parents have gifted me with so many things in my life. But the best gifts, that I hope they know how grateful I am for, are the gifts that they give me to give my children. And that is exactly how they do it. My parents allow me always to be the one giving, they are content to stand to the side and watch, and that makes them extraordinary. This gift, of watching my kids and my husband experience such a magical trip, was one I will treasure for all of my life.
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