Disney!

Finally!  Here are all the best moments of our trip to Disney World.  I will fill in some descriptions here and there, but mostly there are a lot pictures of all our new Disney Friends.  Grandma F, Ava, Ella and I took our trip over Halloween this year in hopes of not missing much school and avoiding large crowds.  Sadly, this is the only picture I got of all four of us together...also unfortunately, Ava's hand can't be cropped out without removing part of Ella's head.  Had I realized her hand was there I obviously would have made some adjustments...thank you Mr. Disney Photographer.

The picture above was actually our second day at the parks.  On our first day, and Halloween, we started the day at Epcot.  The first ride we checked out was the Nemo and Friends ride.  The girls loved the ride and enjoyed their talk with Crush the turtle, even more.  He told the kids to use the word "dude" and much as possible for the rest of the day and that their "parental units" would greatly appreciate it.  The girls thought that was hilarious and Ella still tries to throw in the word "dude" each day.

Our first official character meeting was with Pluto, as seen in the last post, but next was Donald Duck in "Mexico".

We went to Epcot on the first day because we had reservations at one of the restaurants to eat with the princesses.  The girls were SO excited.  I tried to explain to them that the princesses would not be actually sitting and eating with us, but I think they were expecting more than just a quick picture with each one.  My expectations were higher too...not with the time spent with each princess, but with how the girls would talk to them.  They were so excited to meet each one however as soon as the princess would approach our table they would clam up and hand over their autograph book.  Totally star struck I guess.  I also had ordered a photo pass so I wouldn't have to carry around my camera with me and the Disney photographers would take pics of the girls.  Unfortunately, the photographer just stayed with Belle, so my cell phone camera had to suffice for the rest of them.

Ariel...the one Ava was SOOO excited to meet.  Ella seemed a bit nervous.

Cinderella...this princess could not have talked in a quieter voice, we had no idea what she was saying. Very pleasant and full of smiles, but SO quiet!

Snow White was a delight.  She was cheerful and talked in a little high pitched voice just like in the movie.  She was by far the most animated and the most like the "real" princess.

Aurora was the last princess to come to our table and the girls least favorite.  This is only due to the fact that they have never seen Sleeping Beauty and have never referred to her as Aurora...she has always been Sleeping Beauty to us.  Princess Aurora made no sense to them.

Once we were done with lunch we walked around aimlessly for awhile, riding a few low key rides and meeting as many characters as we could find...

That was it for Epcot.  I'm sure there were things we probably missed, but we had to get home and take a break...we were due to be at the Magic Kingdom that night for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.

The Halloween party was great.  They put on a huge parade with lots of floats...the girls were mesmerized.  We were still on the quest to meet as many characters as possible but it was hard to find them since everyone there was dressed in costume!  We managed to find Minnie.  We also found Alice and the Mad Hatter, but it was quite a line and as soon as we got in it they said Alice had to take a break, so we opted to go ride some rides.  This happened a lot to us over the three days....we apparently made everyone have to take a potty break.

We rode the Dumbo ride (numerous times), Pooh Bear ride, It's a Small World and Under the Sea with Ariel.  Ariel's ride was by far the girls' favorite.  Being in the park at night with a more limited number of people was nice.  The lines seemed pretty short, especially since most people were after the candy, those stations definitely had the longer lines.  We did have one long wait to meet Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, it was probably our longest wait the whole weekend. The characters were so great.  They engaged the girls and made them feel so special.  We probably waited 30 minutes (not that long) to meet them, but as soon as we came out Ava said "that was so much fun, can we do that again!".  We talked them into riding Dumbo again and then heading back to the hotel.  After all it was about 12:30 AM!!!

Needless to say we got a pretty late start the next day.  We headed back to Magic Kingdom to see what it looks like during the day.  Not to mention meet more characters and ride more rides!  Ava was in complete awe at the size of the castle and couldn't wait to see inside.  Never having been to Disney I made the mistake of saying ''yeah let's go to the castle, I bet it's beautiful".  Not to take anything away from the outside of the castle, which is absolutely breathtaking, the inside left much to be desired.  Maybe because there is only a small breezeway through the middle of the castle and that's all that's open to the public.  We walked through and heard "that's it? I wanted to see IN the castle".  "Sorry Ava, I guess the princesses don't want everyone going through their bedrooms."  All the princesses, princes and characters did come out to the front of the castle and perform which we enjoyed.  It was neat to see them all together in one place. It was a bit warm at close to 90 degrees, but we couldn't complain, it was sunny!

We then set off on our "Magic" journey.  We went to the Tiki Room...I believe the response was "I thought it was a bird show? None of those birds were real.".  I did enjoy the break from the heat.  We rode on the magic carpet ride...identical to Dumbo, but on Carpets.  We did the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, the girls were very nervous, but put on a brave face.  That is until the ride started, then they cried and wanted off!  There were a few more shows and rides, I can't recall them all, but I do have pictures of all our "meetings" to help me remember.  Our second longest wait of the weekend was meeting with Tinkerbell.  I think she and Rapunzel ended up being the girls favorite "meetings".  

Better yet, Tinkerbell's friend Terrance was there with her.  The girls were told when they walk through the archway into the room they would shrink down to the size of fairies and that is what explains the huge trees, leaves and tea cup.  I think the girls bought it, although Ava did say "did we really shrink down Mom?  I don't feel like I changed sizes".

We also went to Belle's Storybook time and the girls did have fun getting to take part in a story/play with Belle.  However, neither of them had a big part and the pictures didn't turn out very well.  Somewhere around this time we decided to try the mini roller coaster.  Ella was pumped and Ava was NERVOUS.  Afterwards, Ella wanted to do it again and again and Ava wanted to go back to Dumbo!  The best way to describe the coaster for those who haven't been there is to think of the mine train at Six Flags.  Before we headed back for some rest we went over to Ariel's Grotto and met Ariel "as a mermaid".  Ava's smile went from ear to ear.  Ella was still a bit unsure/shy as she was with all the princesses.  When we got out Ava said "I think that was someone dressed up as Ariel because I saw her  knee moving in her fin and she wasn't under water".  I told her that's just where the tail bends and Ariel is part human so she can be out of water for a long time.  I'm glad we went now....I think Ava is just about too old for the fairytale aspect of Disney.  I don't know though..look at that smile!

For our last day of parks we looked forward to getting an early start at Animal Kingdom...it didn't happen.  By the time we were all ready to go it was pouring outside and by the time the rain calmed down it was almost lunch.  As soon as we got to Animal Kingdom, in the rain, it seemed like we got the LAST parking spot in the lot.  This meant a LONG walk, in the rain :(.  Our first order of business was to buy some overpriced ponchos and eat lunch.  We ate at the Rainforest Cafe, which the girls thought was pretty cool.  I wasn't sure they would, but I think they liked the fake rain storm that was simulated every 20 minutes. Luckily, by the time we were done eating the rain had pretty much cleared out which left it a little cooler.

We first headed to the show called "It's tough to be a Bug".  I thought with Ava's love of bugs and knowing the movie it would be a hit.  SO not the case...they hated it!  Both were screaming and crying in the middle of the show (not loud enough to disrupt the show for others, luckily). We then went to a safe activity...meeting Pooh Bear.

As nervous and shy as the girls got when they met the princesses I was surprised at how they were with the characters.  Maybe because the costumes were soft and cuddly?

The last princess we met was Pocahontas.  She was another one we were not very familiar with and she definitely didn't get the hugs that Pooh and Tigger got.

Chip and Dale...

Baloo and King somebody?  I know I should know but I'm just proud I remember they are from the movie Jungle Book.  Maybe King Louie? Not sure??

That was it for our character meetings!  I felt like we met everyone but I was informed we did not see Mulan, Tiana, Merida or Jasmine.  We probably would have tried harder to find them but the girls seemed content with who we had seen so with limited time left we stuck to the rides, playgrounds and face painting.  My two jungle cats...

We made it to the Lion King show which was pretty cool.  At one point a fire juggler person (not sure what to call him) came out...Ella turned to me with a terrified look on her face and said, loudly "are they going to put us on fire!?"  There wasn't anyone seated around us so no one heard her, but I got a chuckle out of it.  We wanted to go on the safari ride and see some more of the animals, but it was getting late and the clouds were rolling back in so we got some souvenirs from our trip to Disney and headed out. I did get a picture of the girls with what I think was called the Tree of Life in the background.  I still don't know what exactly it was....real? fake? a combo?  It looked really neat and it was HUGE.

We survived three days of heat, rain, walking, waiting and more walking.  At 6 and 4 years of age the girls did great, other than a few fights over whose turn it was to rest in the stroller.  We experienced some of what Disney has to offer and hopefully when Gavin is old enough to enjoy it we will be back to enjoy it again, and then some!  Thank you to Grandma F for coming with us and putting up with the stroller arguments and with me when I'm hot, hungry and tired of listening to arguing :)  Also thank you to Grandma C for coming into town and helping Daddy with Gavin duty!  It definitely wouldn't have gone so smoothly with a two year old, or at least not my two year old!