John and I have been talking about going to Walt Disney World since we got married. This year we finally got our act together and took the boys. It was undoubtedly one of the best (if not THE best) vacations I have ever had! Those of you who have been to Disney World are probably shaking your heads, thinking I am crazy. Yes, it was crazy and chaotic and exhausting but I loved every second of it. We got to the park when it opened every morning and stayed until it closed. We had lunches and a breakfast with the characters, we watched parades, shows, fireworks and went on enough rides to make even the stoutest stomach a little queasy. We even managed to fit in a light saber duel with Darth Vader-- but let me start at the beginning:
We arrived in Florida about 7:00pm on the 13th. We were wisked off to Disney's Port Orleans- Riverside resort while they took care of picking up our luggage. Everything went really smoothly until our luggage wasn't delivered to the room until 2:00 am. Then I started getting nervous that this vacation was headed for disaster, but that was the only snag.
First thing Sunday morning we got ready and headed for Disney's Animal Kingdom. We arrived at Animal Kingdom as it opened. We had enough time to sneak in a safari ride before the breakfast. Sam and James got their first glimpse of what the week would entail and you could see that they were enthralled! We had a breakfast date with Mickey and Donald and Daisy and Goofy at the safari breakfast just after 10. We took our picture with Donald at the door and then meet the other three as they visited each table and stopped to hug the kids, take pictures and sign autographs. We learned at this first breakfast one very important detail: Matthew is terrified of the characters. When Mickey came up to say hi, Matthew let out a scream like I have never heard from him before. Anyway, the food was amazing, the service awesome and the characters took the time to pay attention to each of the kids. It was a great way to start the day. We spent the rest of the time wandering around hitting the major rides Kali RIver Rapids, Expedition Everest and Dinosaur and the minor rides as well. Since we had Matthew, John and I did a parent pass for each of the rides. He would take the boys on the ride, having to wait in line, etc., then he would pass the boys to me and I would get to take them in the fast pass line. The boys ended up riding every ride twice within almost the same amount of time that everyone else rode them once. Except for Dinosaur. They went with me and then were too scared to go a second time with John!
We saw two shows while we were at Animal Kingdom the first was a Lion King Spectacular where they sang a mix of songs from The Lion King and also had some fun additions. This was my and John's favorite show from the whole week. The second show we saw was Finding Nemo: The Musical. I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It was actually pretty good and the way they created the characters was genius.
We were so full from our breakfast that we ended up only having a snack at the park instead of lunch and then we ate dinner back at the hotel since the park closed at 5.
Phenomenal first day! Just look at the pictures. Oh yeah, we bought Sam and James some mouse ears- after all, you can't bring your kids to WDW and not get them mouse ears! Matthew borrowed James' ears from time to time. This kid seriously does NOT like hats!
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