Magic Kingdom Disney Day 1

Our first full day in Disney! Woo hoo! (I took a bazillion pictures. I'm going to try and be picky about which ones I use here. The key word is try.)

Tuesday September 3. Magic Kingdom.

What a full day! After a few bumps this morning that led us to quickly go back to our hotel, reassess the stroller and bag situation, we were back in the park within an hour. And after that, our day was smooth sailing. Hot, but oh so fun!

Highlights of Day one:

Bibbity Bobbity Boutique
Cinderella's Royal Table
Move It Shake It Parade
Tea Cups
Carrousel
Dumbo
met Merida from Brave
Lemonade Slushies
at lunch at Cosmic Rays
Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade
Allie met Winnie The Pooh
Winnie The Pooh Ride
Tony's Town Square for supper
Wishes!

I think the alarm went off around 6:00am. We had reservations at 8:00am at the  Bibbity Bobbity Boutique where Audrey got her hair styled like firecrackers or a rock star, not sure which. It was neat getting in to the park before anyone else because we had reservations. At the BBB, the Fairy Godmothers treated her like royalty and it was super fun but I'm not sure she'd choose to do it again. The hair style she chose took for.ev.er! I hope Allie chooses to do it next time though and if Allie does it, Audrey will want to too. It was a little girls dream. The Fairy Godmothers did her hair, make-up and nails. She chose to wear her Snow White outfit for that, and for Cinderella's Royal Table at Cinderella's Castle right afterward. A note: moments after we paid and exited the boutique Audrey tells me she doesn't like her hair because it itches. Well, they put these multicolored fake extensions in and they hung down to her shoulders. When we went back to the hotel a few hours later I cut them out, and took out the MM hair clips but we kept her hair styled.

on the monorail headed to Cinderella's Castle. On our way we stopped at the gift shop and bought autograph books and pens.

We didn't have time to stop and get a good picture of the castle, or the girls in front of it this morning,  I took this picture while walking. 

getting her nails painted

not so sure about her choice of hair.....

We ate breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table and loved it.  Audrey was scared of Cinderella and didn't want to meet her, but loved meeting Ariel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Belle. We got a family picture with Cinderella before we were seated at our table. Their food looked awesome---baked goods, etc and they ordered off a menu. The gluten free options were good too. I hardly had time to notice, actually. The princess breakfast is fast paced, and between feeding Ava and keeping up with the girls' autograph books when a princess would come to our table and grabbing my camera, I think I ate some fresh fruit and a few meats of the sausage sort. We liked this princess breakfast and would do it again. It was neat to eat in Cinderella's castle.

priceless

 Welcoming us back into the park was the Move It Shake It Parade. Woo Hoo. We loved this parade. So fun!

Audrey and I  rode the Tea Cups (Jeremy doesn't do rides that spin and Ava and Allie were asleep). How fun are those!? Giant tea cups that spin as fast as you want? Yes, please! And then we rode the Carrousel. (and Daddy sat that one out too).The littles were still asleep, so we went and rode Dumbo. The Dumbo section was impressive. When Allie woke up later, we rode all three again with her.

Since Jeremy sat out a lot of the rides in Fantasyland, he took Audrey to Tomorrowland to ride the race cars while I watched Allie and Ava.

We are lunch at Cosmic Rays. They got so much food, we ended up throwing away their desserts and half of their meals. If the dining plan wasn't free, I don't think I'd buy it for the girls. Although on the other hand, it let us eat at some pretty nice restaurants.

We met Merida!  Allie tried shooting a bow and arrow. Super fun to watch her do this. Audrey wanted no part of it. Waiting in line to see Merida took awhile. Her line was quite long, but there were a lot of activities to do in her little courtyard. I guess the girls were all smiled out by the time the photographer took the picture with my camera. :)

We needed lemonade slushies! It was so hot waiting in line for Merida. The air wasn't moving at all and the girls were wet with sweat. So we got a drink, put on more sunscreen and then found a spot for the Celebrate A Dream Come True Parade.

The detail and elaborate floats and bright colors were so impressive. Everywhere you look at Disney it's an interesting view and the parades are no exception. 

Allie's favorite character is Winnie the Pooh, and since we did the princess breakfast this morning for Audrey, we had to meet Pooh and Tigger today for Allie. Allie was sooooo cute during this whole meet Winnie the Pooh and Tigger segment of our day. And I say segment because I think it took close to an hour or more by the time we stood in line, and then Pooh and Tigger had to take a break, so we waited for them to come back. But she, at the age of 2 was so patient waiting or them. She didn't cry or whine or run out of line. She just stood there patiently waiting. It was outdoors  and she could see them from  a distance, which helped. It was terribly hot. Disney in September is going to be hot, and this was brutal. But it was oh so worth it to see her stand there and look up at them with her autograph book propped open on her little arms and seeing her interact with Tigger was priceless. After this encounter, Tigger became more important to her than Pooh Bear. Audrey went back and forth on whether or not she wanted to meet them and ultimately exited the line and went to sit with Jeremy and Ava, who were sitting nearby in the shade.

waiting in line for Winnie the Pooh

she was so cute, standing there, holding her autograph book and pen. She would drop the pen occasionally and have to stop and pick it up and find a new page in her book again. She never got flustered or got sad, just picked it up again and again. 

After Allie met Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, we then went and rode the Winnie the Pooh ride. We had fast passed this ride earlier. After the ride we exited into the gift shop and Allie just had to have a Tigger pillow pet.

playing the vegetable drums outside the Winnie the Pooh ride

Whew! Not sure I've sweat so much. Actually, I have, but never on vacation. Lugging three kiddos around Disney World is not really a vacation. It's just fun work. We went back to the hotel to get cleaned up for dinner.

We ate at Tony's Town Square, where Ava, the whole time fussed and whined and really needed to go to sleep! It wasn't my favorite but in their defense I was gluten free, dairy free and egg free.   I had some sort of allergy free meatball and rice noodles here. It could have been the unhappy baby who refused to sit in the high chair that spoiled my dinner, as Jeremy raved about a garlic bread appetizer he got that him and the girls really liked.

After we ate, we found a spot for the fireworks and watched them on Main Street. I loved how Main Street looked all lit up at night.

Today was a huge day with a huge learning curve. We still have lots of adrenaline because it's our first day. We took the monorail home--after sprinting there after the fireworks, we didn't have to wait too long. Tomorrow we will head to Animal Kingdom for a half a day and come back and swim.









Sarah

Disney World, 2012

We LOVED our trip to Disney. I'm still kinda in a funk that we're not there. We arrived on a Monday, and left on a Monday so we could have nonstop flights. We took all three kids, ages 4, 2 and 6 months with no grandparent or nanny, and I still didn't want to leave. It was an awesome vacation and I can't wait to go back.

It wasn't always magical. We had our moments when the fairy dust was running low, but we worked through them and powered on. It was hard work taking two strollers and bags everywhere we went and sweating profusely, gotta love Florida in September. At least we didn't have to worry about where we were going to eat and what we were going to do, since I'd planned all that out and made reservations before we left home.

At a glance, this was our trip: We stayed 7 nights. We stayed in a one bedroom villa at the Bay Lake Towers at the Contemporary Resort, which is on the monorail, which ROCKED. Except the day that it broke, but still it was ok because we walked that day back and forth from our hotel and it only took us 8 minutes. We loved staying that close to Magic Kingdom, as we spent a good portion of our time there. We had the meal plan because it was free. We took a City Mini single stroller and rented a double of the same brand through Orlando Stroller Rentals. We got groceries delivered to our room through Garden Grocer. (and diapers, wipes, baby formula, food, etc). We spent nearly three full days at Magic Kingdom, a half day at Animal Kingdom, swam in our hotel pool and splash park, two days at Hollywood Studios and one intensely long day at Epcot. We made more food reservations than we needed. We filled up our autograph book and met lots of characters and all the Princesses and Fairies, including Periwinkle, the newest fairy that hadn't even come out yet. We loved the parades, especially the Move It Shake It Parade. We watched the fireworks at Magic Kingdom from nearly every point possible, including down in front of the caste. We got a park hopper pass, and it was worth it.  Even though I don't think we ever went from one park to the next until the last day.

Disney has a learning curve, and you can read lots of books, spend hours on the internet but you've just got to go and do it and see what works for you and your family. That was part of our problem the first morning at Magic Kingdom. I listened to everyone who said, pack water bottles and snacks and etc etc. We had so many bags between the diaper bag and extra clothes, that water bottles just weighed us down. It worked out better for us to just use our snack vouchers as part of the dining plan to buy drinks. It was soooooo hot this week that we didn't want food per sea, but drinks. And our hotel was so close, that half way through the day we needed a change of clothes anyway, because we'd sweat through our first set. We could go back, change, grab a snack and head back to the park.

Departure Day.

We headed to the airport around 3:00 pm to catch our 5:00 pm  flight to Orlando. A little note: This flight was ok, but we didn't get to our hotel until after 9 waiting on the Disney Magic Express. And then we sat on the Magic Bus for an hour. I ordered room service at 11:30 p.m. because I hadn't had anything to eat all day. We survived the flight without any major meltdowns or screaming fits--from me or the kids. :) I really hate to fly. Allie and Jeremy sat on one side of the aisle and I had Audrey and Ava. Ava fell asleep before take off was finished. Audrey was content to play her Leap pad and look out the window.

We chose Bay Lake because of the Villa and because it was close to Magic Kingdom. We wanted a kitchen and dishwasher with Ava still using bottles and me with the gluten intolerance and all. I wanted to be able to make food in the room. Our view was Bay Lake and our hotel's pool and splash park. Like so many other things, they were in the shape of Mickey ears. We had two full bathrooms. The girls slept on the pull out couch and Ava in the provided pack n play. The decor of Contemporary and Bay Lake is modern, not my style per sea, but it's location I couldn't pass up. And it's nice. I had my own laundry room (that came in very handy), said kitchen, and space. The best part was that we took our elevator down to the 5th floor, walked across to the Contemporary via the sky bridge and walked right to the monorail. We would stay at Bay Lake again, or any other hotel on the MK monorail.

When we got to our room, got our groceries, got settled and got the girls in to their pajamas, it was nearly midnight. Ava didn't sleep well at all. She ended up with us, but got a runny nose somewhere between home and Florida and just couldn't breathe. I think Jeremy and I got maybe 2 hours of sleep. But, we were in Disney World, and that wasn't going to stop us from our huge day we had planned the next day. Our first full day at Disney would be in Magic Kingdom.

the girls were infatuated watching the planes come and go at the  airport.

Sarah