And, Back to the MK

Wednesday, we slept in a little bit and still managed to make it back to the Magic King.dom right at 8:00am.  We had changed our plan a bit...we planned to be at Hollywood Stud.ios on Wednesday morning, but we had ticked off so many things there earlier in the week, that we opted to go back to the Magic King.dom instead.  We walked in and headed straight over to meet Mickey before the lines got too long.

Two littles bright-eyed and excited to meet Mickey!

5 minutes later, we were meeting the Mouse!

And a family pic, too, of course!

From there we headed to Adventure.land.  We road the Pirates of the Carib.bean ride again at Callen's request and piddled around a bit trying to decide where we wanted to go next.

As we walked from Adventure.land towards Frontier.land, we noticed that it was almost time for some of our favorite characters to come out.  Since there was only one other person in line, we jumped at the chance to meet them quickly!

Waiting for, as the cast member put it, Andy to open his toy box.

Finally, it was our turn to meet Woody and Jessie!

Lots of Love from the Willis children!  

Blowing kisses to Jessie!

  

It was so great to see the children get so excited over the characters and princesses the other wanted to see.  It was truly sweet!

After Carter opted to skip Splash Moun.tain this time, we hopped on the train and rode from Frontier.land to Fantasy.land.

 We road all of our favorites again in Fantasyland, the teacups several times, of course, and then headed back over to Tomorrow.land to ride the Buzz ride and see if we could meet him!

We did a quick change for Carter--he insisted that if Callen got to meet Cinderella dressed the same, then he got to dress the same as Buzz for that introduction!

 Playing with the space ranger map while waiting on Buzz

Finally, he is here.

Nick and I swapped out riding space moun.tain while we were over in Tomorrow.land, and then we wrapped up our day at Magic Kingdom to head back for some naps.  We had learned on Tuesday that we might be able to have a little longer nights if we built in some time for naps.

After both children took pretty good naps, we headed over to Epcot by boat and grabbed some dinner.  Then, we tried out some of the rides at Epcot--the Nemo ride was an easy favorite of the children--and enjoyed a sucker {and some beer for the adults!} while we waited for the Fireworks!

We enjoyed our preview of Epcot as we were headed there on Thursday!

On to Animal King.dom

We started our Tuesday off with another pre-park-opening breakfast in the Animal King.dom at the Tusker House.  We got to meet and take pictures with Donald on the way in and while we were yumming up our breakfast and drinking our jungle juice, we go to meet Mickey, Daisy and Goofy too!

Goofy really does like to be silly!  He kept covering up Callen's face

 

After we wrapped up breakfast with a parade around the room led by Goofy, we once again were in a prime spot for the hot ride:  the Safari!

We hopped on the first truck of the day and headed out to see some beautiful animals.  We had barely gotten out on the path before we were stopped in the road by a giraffe eating her breakfast.  We got to wait patiently and watch until she'd had her fill and moved on.

as we drove past her...

We saw ostrich eggs just dropped in the middle of the grass alongside the road...there were several piles of these!

The rhino seemed to be posing for us as we drove by!

I really loved the hippos...I should have had Nick take this picture since he is taller, they were all laying on top of one another and were just snoozing.

 

After the safari, we headed over to the Kali River Rapids.  Carter and Nick were the brave ones who rode...  {and got soaked!  Luckily, they had plenty of time and sunshine to dry!} 

....while Callen found her own way to get soaked!

From there, Nick and I took turns riding Everest.  Carter was tall enough, but we had heard from one of his friends at school that Everest might be a little scary for him, so we opted not to push it.

We went to see if we could catch the next showing of the Nemo and Friends show, but we just missed it, so we spent some time in the dinosaur area {can't remember what it is officially called}.  We rode the Triceratops ride about three times since there was no line and then we waited to see Goofy and Pluto.

 Pluto kept trying to get Carter to give him five and then he would pull his hand away!  Carter and Callen thought it was hilarious!  Looks like Goofy's seen it before.

 After visiting with Pluto and Goofy, we finally made it to the Nemo show.  From there we headed over to Camp Mickey to see the Lion King show.  I was so glad that we saw the characters at breakfast...the lines to see them were super-long!  We enjoyed the Lion King, headed back towards the middle of the park to grab some lunch and then headed home to let the kiddos rest a bit before heading back out.

We had planned to have them have a  little down time and then we were going to hit the fireworks show at Epcot.  However, they didn't sleep much and when we began to head over to Epcot about 6:00, Carter asked if we could stay so he could go to sleep!  We grabbed a quick dinner and headed up to an early bedtime.

First Visit to the Ma.gic King.dom

Our first full day at Dis.ney Wor.ld, we spend the majority of the day at the Mag.ic King.dom.  At the suggestion of my SIL, we had booked a breakfast at Cinder.ella's Castle before the park opened.  {aside:  This was an AWESOME suggestion.  We had pre-park opening breakfasts on three mornings in three different parks.  I absolutely loved being in the parks when it was quiet AND you have the added benefit of being able to be first in line for the rides once the breakfast is over and the park is open!}

We headed into the park around 7:50, stopping to take some castle pics on the way to breakfast.

and one with the family!

 Callen and Carter were excited to see Cinderella.  This isn't our "official" Cinderella picture, but those weren't digital.  Even when our turn visiting was over, Callen kept turning around and walking back towards Cinderella.  She was totally enamored.  Little did she know that we'd have a visit from all the princesses at our table at breakfast!

 The next several are just pics of all the princesses with our prince and princess.  I just love Callen's face in them.  She was thrilled!

 And, as we were leaving breakfast, we saw Cinderella's fairy godmother and had to snag a picture with her, too!

 Since we were already on the back side of the castle, we decided to spend some time in Fantasy.land in the morning.  So we started with Peter Pan, where we walked right up and got on!  Score!  Then we headed across the way to It's a Small World.  Carter and Callen really liked this one...we rode it several times over the week!

 We hit the Pooh ride and then on to the tea cups!  Nick got us started spinning and then asked the children if they wanted to spin the teacup.  Carter said no, but Callen was up for it!  She was having a ball!

 We rounded out Fantasy.land with Dumbo and Goofy's Barn.stormer and then headed over to Tomorrow.land.  We started off riding the cars at the speedway and when we finished, the line for the Buzz ride was short, so we jumped in line to battle with Zurg!

 We stopped for a late lunch at Cry.stal Pal.ace hoping to meet our Pooh friends.  We did get to meet Eeyore, Tigger and Piglet, but since we met Pooh the day before at Holly.wood Stud.ios, we didn't wait around for him.  {aside:  This was my most disappointing character meal.  Food wasn't that good, and it seemed disorganized.  I wouldn't do it again.}

After lunch, we had a fast pass for the Jungle Cruise, so we headed over to Adventure.land and jumped on board the boat.  After that, we walked right up to ride the Pirates of the Carib.bean ride {which Callen loved!  it was the ride she kept asking to ride!}

Then, we made our way over to Frontier.land.  Nick talked Carter into riding Splash Moun.tain, so Callen and I stood in line for a pic with Pooh and Tigger.  Carter and Dad came back from the ride just in time for Carter to jump in the pic.  Then, with a little prodding, Carter went back with me to ride again!

 By that point, it was getting close to parade time, so we found a prime shaded spot in Frontierland and parked for a little rest to wait on the parade!  Carter and Callen had gotten new sleep friends and spent some time getting them comfortable for the parade too!

Then, it was parade time!  They loved the music and seeing all the characters, princesses, and dancers.

After the parade, we decided to go back to the hotel and swim a little bit and relax.  We had a low key evening and revamped our plan a little because we had already done and seen more than we had planned. We went to bed anticipating another fun breakfast at the Animal King.dom the next day!

Magical Vacation, part 1

The first Sunday in May, we headed to the airport to begin a magical trip to Dis.ney Wor.ld!  We boarded  the plane and headed south to Orlan.do.

We made it to our hotel, checked in, picked up our stroller and headed by boat to Holly.wood Studios for our first afternoon.  We were very excited to see that we made it just as the parade was coming our way.  We stopped to watch because we were in the perfect spot, right at the last turn so we could see everything!

We were very excited to see some of our favorites headed right towards us!!

First stop after the parade was to see Wood.y and Bu.zz and have our pictures taken.  Honestly, I think this was the longest line {save Toy St.ory Man.ia} that we stood in all week and it probably wasn't more than about 25 minutes.  It truly was the perfect time to go!

From there, we decided to go see the Dis.ney Jr Live on Stage show, which was a lot of fun for the kiddos.  Afterwards, they were delighted to meet Jake and Han.dy Man.nny!

I thought Carter and Callen might be tentative around the characters, but they were not at all.  They greeted every one like old friends!

Next we headed inside to see some friends in air conditioning.

We took in the Litt.le Mer.maid show and then headed over to see Light.ning Mc.Queen and Ma.ter before eating dinner! 

 After dinner, we took in Fan.tasmic and then headed home to hit the hay for a big day at the Ma.gic King.dom the next day!