Travel

This morning we had reservations to eat at Hollywood & Vine in MGM Hollywood Studios, so we could hang out with the characters from Playhouse Disney. Carrie still misses watching JoJo’s Circus, so this was a great way to see JoJo and Goliath. Like Chef Mickey’s, the food wasn’t anything to write home about, but the girls had great fun dancing to the music and meeting the characters!

After breakfast, we headed over to the “new” Toy Story ride (new to us, anyway), grabbed some fastpasses for later and hopped in line to ride right away. Best. Ride. Ever. Even better than Buzz Lightyear! We saw the Little Mermaid show and then headed back to use our fastpasses…

…and then we came out and it was…wait for it…raining again! The girls and I ducked into a photo line for Buzz and Woody (Anna wanted nothing to do with Buzz!) while Denis went to find our very wet stroller.

We sang “just keep swimming, just keep swimming” all the way to the Beauty and the Beast mini-show, then dashed back to catch the Playhouse Disney show. Anna loved that one – pretty much anything that involves bubbles and streamers is guaranteed to be a hit with her!

Denis took Anna back for a much needed nap, while Carrie and I headed to Pizza Planet for lunch. On the way, we took a quick detour to ride Star Tours – one of the few rides with height requirements that Carrie was actually tall enough to ride! After lunch we checked out the Muppets show (and I realized I’ve been very negligent in Carrie’s education: she’s never seen the Muppets before!) and then “met” the characters from Cars.

We toured the movie backdrops and visited the Honey I Shrunk the Audience playground, and then went on a little animation tour that ended in a room with lots and lots and lots of characters. Did I mention that there were lots of characters? We met the characters from Up and the Incredibles, saw Jasmine, Mulan, and the evil queen from Snow White – who asked Carrie if she liked apples!

And that sounds like a pretty full day, right?

But then we took a couple of buses to Downtown Disney! We met Denis and Anna at T-Rex, where we were originally sitting in the Ice Age room and had to ask to move because the lighting was giving us all headaches. Once we moved, though, we really enjoyed our meal – the room we wound up in had lots of giant sea creatures.  Carrie really enjoyed digging in the boneyard for a bit after dinner.

We wrapped up the day by buying a tub full of Legos at the Lego store, and a box full of Potato Head pieces and another box full of My Little Pony pieces at the giant toy store.

We were really, really impressed that Carrie not only walked the entire day, but she was skipping all the way back to the bus when we finally left Downtown Disney!

This morning we had a quick breakfast in our room and headed out to wait for the bus to Animal Kingdom.

First stop: the safari.  It was amazing! Because we went so early in the day and the weather was so mild there were so many animals out and about. We saw elephants, lions, hippos, giraffes and flamingos. And an Okapi. And then we walked through one of the trails and saw even more animals, including lots of exotic birds and fish.

We had made lunch reservations at a place we’ve never been to: Yak & Yeti. It was absolutely fabulous: the food, service, and atmosphere was wonderful! We will definitely go back the next time we make it here.

Before we stopped for lunch it started raining, hard. And even though it slowed down a bit after, it was showing no signs of stopping. We ducked into a character greeting line for the Winne the Pooh characters, and then after we met them we went to a shortened musical version of Finding Nemo. The show was great – they used a combination of live actors and costumes that were partly puppets, and it was beautiful.

But when we got out of the show, the rain had not only not stopped, but had turned into a torrential downpour. We made the decision to head back and dry out a bit, and hope the rain would stop early enough to go back to another park after dinner. Anna conked out under her poncho in the stroller before we even left the park, and by the time we managed to get back on the bus we were all pretty tired and glad to be heading home for a bit!

After a bit of a rest, we had some dinner in the room and then Denis took Carrie back to Magic Kingdom to fly on Aladdin’s Magic Carpet and watch the Spectromagic parade.

Another fun, full day, despite the rain!

Today started out with a breakfast at Chef Mickey’s. The food was decent – just your usual breakfast buffet types of foods, but the characters were definitely fun. Anna was not quite sure about the characters, but wasn’t really afraid of them either. Carrie was just thrilled! We got to see Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Minnie and Pluto.

The Contemporary is easy walking distance to the entrance of the Magic Kingdom, which is where we headed next. First stop: It’s a Small World! Anna was as entranced by this ride as Carrie was on her first trip, and Carrie is still young enough to enjoy it too.

It was a little chillier than we expected, so after spending the morning riding a few other rides: Pooh, Peter Pan and Small World again, and waiting in line to see Ariel in her grotto, we headed back for lunch and a nap. And some jackets!

Once we were all rested and wearing warmer clothes, we headed back to Magic Kingdom and explored Tomorrowland. Carrie was begging to go on the Astro Orbiter, which we did. Denis and I have decided we’re much to old to go on that ride again! The kids, however, did like it. Maybe they’ll be old enough to go on it themselves next time? At least everyone enjoyed the Tomorrowland Transit ride and Buzz Lightyear!

After dinner at Cosmic Ray’s, we settled in on a bridge to wait for the fireworks display. It was great – they even had star and heart shaped fireworks! We made our way out of the park with the rest of the crowd and were very happy to be able to walk back to our hotel instead of waiting in line for a bus or the monorail!

Tomorrow, we go on safari…

Our Disney adventure started with an early, slippery drive to the airport. And thank goodness we got there early – they boarded the plane and took off 20 minutes before our scheduled flight time! I sat with Anna, Denis and Carrie sat in the row behind us. We rented a CARES harness for Anna, which didn’t fit as well as we’d expected, but it was OK. For the most part the girls enjoyed the flight and were very well behaved. We got to Orlando in time for lunch, and then we headed for the Magical Express bus. Anna was beyond thrilled to be riding a bus – much happier than she was about the plane! The bus ride was pretty long, and we stopped at a few other resorts before we got to ours, but finally we reached the Contemporary.

We checked in, headed across the walkway to Bay Lake Tower, and took the elevator up to the 14th floor. We were all absolutely amazed at our suite! It was huge! A full kitchen, two bathrooms (one with a whirlpool tub), a spacious bedroom, a living & dining room, and a small balcony…plus a lovely view of the bay below.

It was a tiring travel day, so instead of trying to eek out a couple of hours in one of the parks we decided to stay in, put away our (conveniently delivered) groceries, unpack our luggage, and cook dinner. We explored a little of the hotel and grounds after dinner, put together a rough plan for tomorrow, and then headed to bed.