Disney2010

Our Magical Express bus to the airport was scheduled to pick us up at 5:55 AM, which meant we had to get up at oh-dark-thirty to make it there in time.

We were sort of hoping the big storm headed up the East coast would delay us a bit, but no such luck. So, back to winter we went!

The flights back were mostly OK, although Anna was so tired by the end of the second one that she cried for most of the last half hour…and then conked out just moments before we landed. Which meant I carried a very soundly asleep (and heavy) baby off the plane!

So, we’re back in Rochester, where it’s cold…but cold like February is supposed to be.

And now we need a vacation from our vacation!

Our last day at Disney – this trip anyway – and we headed back to Epcot to see some of the things we didn’t get to the first time there, and to finish our world tour!

First, we headed for The Seas. The Nemo ride was a huge hit with the girls, and Anna has found a new favorite character: “Nee-Moh!” We walked around the giant aquarium, and saw lots of really neat fish. I herded everyone into the Turtle Talk with Crush show, which was “totally sweet, dude!” Really, it was hilariously funny and something to put on our don’t-miss list for next time!

After the seas, we headed for The Land. Anna was too little to go on Soarin’, and we couldn’t actually do a switch off at the entry point like you can for many rides, so we had to take turns – which took forever! But it was definitely fun, although given the option to go again with Denis, Carrie chose not to. After we had all soared over California, we went to Sunshine Seasons for an early lunch, to prepare ourselves to walk from Canada to Morocco!

Canada was mainly a quick stop just to work on the mask, and then we visited jolly old England, where we saw a troupe of performers that were rather Python-esque. In France, we stopped for some delicious pastries, because, really, Epcot is just an excuse to sample cuisine from all over the world, right?

We spent a good deal of time in Morocco, both to let Carrie finish her mask and because the architecture there is so beautiful.

Weary from our world travels, we boarded the ferry to head back, where we ducked into Mouse Gear just as the rain started falling in earnest. It took a while to pick out t-shirts for everyone, and the rain just didn’t let up.

Denis decided to take Anna back to the hotel and Carrie and I ran through the pouring rain long enough to get a couple of Mickey ice cream bars. We tried to wait out the rain, but ultimately decided to call it a day.

We ordered in pizza for dinner and then walked down to the hotel arcade for a bit. Did a little more shopping in the hotel gift shops, and then headed back to pack up and put the kids to bed.

I did one last thing before going to bed myself…our first night, we had heard some strange music out on the bay, and after a little research discovered it was the Floating Electrical Pageant. We’d only really watched it through the windows of the hotel room every night – and the kids were soundly asleep and never did get to see it – so I walked out onto the dock to get a better view, along with some pictures and video. It was even maybe a little stranger out there…definitely an unusual way to end a vacation!

Today was another sunny day, and we walked over to Magic Kingdom to meet some fairies! Denis and Anna walked through the park while Carrie and I took the railroad around.

We stood in line for a very, very long time to meet the fairies. But it was worth it to see how excited Carrie was to meet Iridessa, Tinkerbell and Silvermist.

When we left Pixie Hollow and grew back to our normal size, we had just enough time to make it to our lunch reservation: Cinderella’s Royal Table! Of all the dining experiences we had in Disney, this was by far the most expensive. And it was also, by far, the most excellent! Really, the food here was top notch, and the character experience was great. The girls were visited by Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine and Belle – and all this was after seeing Cinderella herself downstairs. The cutest bit was that they had wishing stars and wands for the kids. At one point, they held a wishing ceremony. Carrie’s wish? To spend “half the time as a fairy, half the time as a princess, and half the time as a mermaid”.

After lunch, we headed back to Toon Town – we’ve heard rumors that by the next time we go it will have been replaced with another attraction, so we spent some time on the playground and in Mickey and Minnie’s houses. Denis took Carrie on Goofy’s Barnstormer – another minimum height ride – which Carrie loved. And then we headed back for a nap and a rest.

Anna napped (and I suspect Denis did too!) while Carrie and I checked out the pool. It had a zero entry area and a small waterslide that Carrie went down over and over. She contemplated the big waterslide (not super duper big, but big enough!) but changed her mind at the last minute. And we took a short dip in the hot tub, which is funny considering how tepid the bathwater has to be if we don’t want to hear wails about how she’s being burned alive… After we (mostly) dried off, we checked out the strip of beach on the other side of the hotel, where Denis and Anna found us. Anna wasn’t quite sure she liked the cold sand between her toes!

We had a quick dinner, then headed back to the Magic Kingdom. For some crazy idea we thought we’d take the kids on the Haunted Mansion ride. Which was scary for a few reasons – mostly because it kept stopping for long periods of time, and we were sure we were going to be trapped there until we became ghosts ourselves! After that, we bored the kids with the Hall of Presidents (which had been closed for renovations the other two times I’ve been). I was pretty impressed with the show, and am glad I finally got to see it.

As we exited the theater, the Spectromagic parade was passing through, so we watched the end of that. Carrie was so excited to see it again! And finally, Denis took Anna home to bed while Carrie and I sat right in front of the lit-up castle to watch the fireworks again. We were both a little sad that we won’t get to see them again until next time we come to Disney!

Another quick breakfast in the room, because today we headed to Epcot! And we finally had some nice sunny weather!

We went through Spaceship Earth first, which has definitely changed since we were there last time. One annoying thing was that the ride kept stopping (sometimes several times in a row, just a little bit apart). We think it was to help passengers with limited mobility load, but the annoying bit was more that they kept announcing that the ride was stopped and to stay in your seats while the narrator was talking, so we’d miss important bits of the story the ride was supposed to be telling.

Now, we know lots of people think Epcot is the least fun park, but it’s pretty much hands down our favorite. So right after Spaceship Earth, we grabbed a passport kit and headed to the world showcase.

We ate in Mexico, at San Angel Inn. It was yummy, but possibly the least little-kid-friendly place we ate at (it was pretty dark and the kids’ menu options were not really that great). And in Mexico Carrie started working on her Kidcot mask.

In Norway, Carrie survived the Maelstrom, while Anna took a 10 minute stroller nap. Not quite what we were hoping for…since Epcot is so big and so much walking we hadn’t planned to go back to the hotel for a nap today – but 10 minutes isn’t very long!

We saw some amazing acrobats in China, then stopped for a quick bout of drum playing and ice cream eating at the Outpost. Denis got himself a beer in Germany, and we caught another show and admired the architecture in Italy. We stopped in America just long enough to visit the Kidcot station.

Finally, we headed for Japan, where we had a wonderful dinner at Tokyo dining. The kids’ plates were shaped like trains…which Anna decided were much more fun to push around the table than actually eat from.

We wrapped up the evening by hiking all the way to Canada to see Off Kilter (warning: their site plays music). We love this band, and were really amused to watch the girls dance like maniacs to their music! And then we staked out a spot to watch the fireworks. Anna conked out before the fireworks even started, and slept right through them. Carrie was asleep before we got back to the hotel. And we were very happy that we’d brought both strollers!

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.