Walt DisneyWorld

Trip 2012

*for journalling purposes, I know it is long, but these are our memories :)

Day One (3/18/2012):  Driving day – Scott slept Saturday evening and then we put the sleeping kids in the car and left at 1am (Sunday).  At around 7am we stopped to fill the van up with gas and take a potty break, then drove a ways further before stopping for breakfast.  Bugs all around.  Changed to clothes.  Stopped by Daytona Beach to put our toes in the sand and ocean! Arrived at our condo in Orlando (Kissimee) around 4pm and went to dinner at Sizzler, then to bed to rest up for Disney!

Day Two (3/19): Magic Kingdom…packed cooler with lunch and snacks and Minnie Mouse bag (diaper bag) and headed out by 9am. Planned to park at Magic Kingdom, leave cooler in the van and come back to get it at lunch...found that impossible with the rigamarole we had to go through to get in to the park.  Monorail or Ferry ride (we chose ferry, and we were lucky enough to be able to leave our double tandem stroller put together while on the ferry so we didn’t have to get Andrew and Abigail out), then you’re supposed to ride a tram the rest of the way to the gate, but you have to fold up strollers, so we walked. Then they do a bag check (had to get all the bags out from under the stroller, and then through the ticket gate (with fingerprinting!). Finally made it into the park. Straight to Space Mountain to get fast passes, rode the Astro Orbiter, Tomorrowland Speedway, met up with Jordan Collins (kids’ babysitter when we lived in Pennsylvania), ate at Tortuga Tavern (Mexican food) for lunch since we didn’t want to go all the way back out to the van, rode Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash Mountain, Jungle Cruise, met Mary Poppins and Ariel and Prince Eric, watched the 3pm Parade and the Night Electrical parade, Fireworks show, Haunted Mansion ride. Magic Kingdom closed at midnight this night. Got back to the condo at about 12:30, all kids wiped out asleep.

Day Three (3/20): Back to Magic Kingdom, headed to Fantasyland to ride the younger kids rides (Dumbo, Barn Stormer, met Mickey and Minnie, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Belle, ate our picnic lunch by the castle, went to dinner at Polynesian Resort’s Ohana restaurant, cambe back to Magic Kingdom and rode It’s a Small World, Peter Pan’s Flight, Snow White’s Scary Adventure, Winnie the Pooh ride, during the fireworks show we went back to Splash Mountain and rode a couple more times.  Magic Kingdom closed at 11pm this night, back to condo late again.

Day Four (3/21): Scott took Alex and Analeigh to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure to ride the Harry Potter rides! I kept the younger two, went to WalMart to get shorts for Andrew and some more cereal and milk, found more Froggy material just like Andrew’s blankie that he loves. They got to have great long naps, then I took them to the pool for a little while until it was time to go pick up Scott and the big kids.  Alex and Analeigh had had a great time. The weather was nice and cooler this day.  Baked pizza at the condo for dinner.

Day Five (3/22): Scott’s conference started, so he left early and I took the kids on the bus shuttle to Animal Kingdom. It was a very hot day.  Exhausting.  Safari ride, walked through Africa and Asia, watched a Birds of Wonder show, met up with Scott around 1:30pm, watched the Lion King show (excellent!), rode Expedition Everest (everyone’s favorite ride of the trip) 4 times in a row, rode the river rapids ride and got soaked (even Abigail...and she loved it!), left to go back to condo to swim, grabbed dinner at Wendy’s on the way back to condo, big kids went swimming with Scott while I got Andrew bathed and to bed.

 Day 6 (3/23):  Scott’s conference continued.  I took the kids to Epcot.  We didn’t leave quite as early in the morning as we did the day before because we had ridden the shuttle that only left at certain times of the day to get to Animal Kingdom and we drove to Epcot instead.  We had dropped off Scott at the conference this morning.  The kids were not being very helpful in getting out the door this morning and they ended up getting in trouble, especially when Alex was messing around with the luggage cart that I was using to get everything we needed out to the car and he had Andrew up on it and almost made him fall off of it onto the tile floor by whipping it around too fast.  I was tired and they were getting worn out too.  But we finally made it out the door and to Epcot.  It was a really hot day and we weren’t exactly sure what to do there before Scott got there to help us go on rides.  Finally, we decided to go ahead and get some fast passes for Soarin’ and go on the Finding Nemo ride.  By the time we were done with those things we were all hungry…it was another hot day as well.  When I went to get our lunches out of the cooler bag, I realized I had left all of our sandwiches on the counter in the condo!!  Ugh!  So we just ate all of the snacky things I had packed.  While we were eating Scott called and said he was on his way…hallelujah!  Once he got there things were considerably better (although all of the kids were behaving so much better than they had been that morning! Especially Alex…he has really been showing so much maturity lately when he can sense that I am serious about them behaving. He will push the stroller, fetch things for me, look for ways to help out and it is a big help to have him finally doing that).  We were able to ride the rides, and at Epcot you walk through different “countries” and experience a little bit of that country’s culture.  It was pretty entertaining.  One problem we encountered while at Epcot, though, was not being able to find a place to eat dinner.  We had planned on being there into the night ours, and so had planned to just eat something in the park, especially since I had packed us lunches.  Well, everyone was very hungry by dinnertime since we had not had sandwiches with our lunches and so we started our hunt for dinner.  Each country has at least one or two restaurants, but we quickly learned that if we had wanted to eat dinner here we should have made reservations looooong before now.  There was nowhere with any availability!  We ended up walking around the whole loop of countries and found only one place where we could eat…the AMERICAN place.  Of course, no one wanted to eat there when there were so many other, ethnic options.  But that’s where we ended up.  It was still good (mostly because we were absolutely starving by then, ha).  We had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, Analeigh had a chicken caesar salad.  It was fine.  When we were finished it was just about time for the fireworks show, so we walked around to find a good spot.  We watched the fireworks show, which was extremely loud and had huge fireballs.  At first I thought the platform that shot off the fireworks was on fire, but that was just part of the show.  It scared me to death though.  Afterward, we had to get to one last ride that we had fast passes for – Test Track.  It was very late, and the wait was kind of long, so by the time we were headed to the car everyone was beat.  It got so that I had to bribe the kids with promises of pieces of candy for not complaining.  Whoever went the longest without complaining would get one of my chocolate mint toads Scott had bought me at Harry Potter world in Universal Studios.  It was kind of funny.  Alex was great at it and kept winning because Analeigh would not get very far before the complaints would start.  She kept getting further and further behind where we were all walking and I kept trying to slow down to walk with her, but she would just get slower.  She said she had decided to walk that far behind us so she wouldn’t be tempted to complain and could win some chocolate too!  Smart girl! Haha  Well it worked.  They were both able to win some chocolate and we heard very little complaining from then until we made it to the condo.  We got the kids all tucked in their beds where they slept soundly while Scott and I got most everything packed up for the trip back home the next day.

I think our favorite part of Epcot was Mexico.  It had a very fun market place and the boat ride was fun for everyone.  Now that I think about it, though, Alex’s favorite part of Epcot might have been the ride Mission: Space.  He is pretty certain that he wants to be an astronaut one day, so this was a ride he had really been looking forward to.  He was a little disappointed, I think, to find that we weren’t actually in control of how our excursion into space turned out, but he liked it.  He got some space exploration flash cards in the gift shop here.

I don’t think I would go back to Epcot with little ones again though.  It was fine, but I don’t think any of us are itching to go back there anytime soon.  Heat and lack of food could have swayed our experience more towards the negative though ;) .

Day 7 (3/24):  Scott had one last day of his conference, so we dropped him off at the hotel and I took the kids back and we finished packing up everything and checked out of the condo.  We had time to kill while waiting for Scott so I took the kids to Downtown Disney, which is like a huge outdoor mall with all things Disney available to purchase.  Alex had spent a little of his souvenir money, but not much, and Analeigh had not spent any yet, so they were on the hunt for good souvenirs.  (Leading up to our trip for about a month and a half I had put a sticker on the calendar each day the kids had come home from school and done their chores/practiced piano without complaining and there had to be no fighting with each other.  We gave them a dollar for each sticker they earned.  It proved to be a great incentive, and they each earned quite a bit.)  Analeigh decided on a Belle (from Beauty and the Beast) dress for her American Girl dolls and a charm for her charm bracelet…which, sadly, fell off her bracelet at the soccer field the week after we got home.  She also got a Minnie Mouse pencil.  Alex bought some Bertie Bott’s every flavor beans (Harry Potter) when they were at Universal Studios, and a pack of space information cards at Epcot, then he got a container of Lego’s and a couple of Lego mini figures at the Lego store in downtown Disney.  While we were shopping Scott rode the shuttle down after his conference and met up with us for some lunch before leaving DisneyWorld behind.  We ate at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant for lunch that was sooo good.  Best meal of the week.  Scott and I got Spaghetti and Meatballs, Alex and Analeigh both got Fettucinni, and Abigail and Andrew had a cheese pizza.  All of it was good.  No one had any complaints! 

After lunch we took off on the road back home.  We weren’t sure where we were going to stay this night yet.  We wanted to make it about half way home.  We also wanted to stay at the beach on Hilton Head Island (SC), if possible but we hadn’t made any reservations, so when we started to get close I got on my phone and started looking for hotels and deals nearby.  We finally found a Hilton Garden Inn at a great price right over the bridge to Hilton Head.  It was pretty late when we got there that night, so we put the kids to bed and planned to go swing by the beach for a little while the next morning. 

Day 8 (3/25):  The Hilton Garden Inn had a restaurant that served breakfast and we were told that kids eat free (yay!!), so we ate there for breakfast.  It was great.  We paid for two meals and they actually let 4 kids eat free.  Wow!  It was great food too.  We ordered omelets, French toast, biscuits and gravy, all kinds of stuff.  Ha! 

We weren’t going to be able to change clothes and clean up much after the beach since we had to check out of the hotel before leaving, so we knew we wouldn’t really be able to get in the water.  It was chilly anyway, so it wasn’t really a big deal.  We waded in the water and found interesting things in the sand.  There was a storm in the night and it had obviously washed up lots of jellyfish, and sand dollars were everywhere!  The jellyfish were a little scary.  They were huge.  I would not want to bump into one of those in the water. Yikes! I really don’t think you could have played in the water without being stung by one.  They really were everywhere.  We had a good time anyway.  The kids had a ball collecting sand dollars and just playing around on the beach.  It is so peaceful and relaxing watching the waves roll in and out.  There is almost no place I would rather be.  Before any of us were ready it was time to get on our way again.  We cleaned up the kids and changed some of their clothes, then settled them in with movies and books to help them make the rest of our journey home.  Our drive home went smoothly. 

We feel so lucky and blessed to have been able to make such a fantastic, memorable trip and have it go smoothly.  The kids did so well with all of the travelling and were well behaved and had a great time.  I firmly believe one of the best things we can do with and for our kids is to have fun and make lots of memories together.  We may not have all of the material possessions that lots of people like to own, but we have many, many fun memories that we share as a family.  I am so grateful for that.  I am grateful to a hard working husband that takes care of us and helps us to have fun together.  We are blessed.