Magic Kingdom Part 1

Magic Kingdom

Again we got up early (6:15) to get ready for the MAGIC KINGDOM!!!  We were most excited about this park and wanted to make sure we got to the gates early to get a good spot for the morning show. One of S's favorite characters is Marie (from the Aristocats) and we had watched a few YouTube videos with her arriving in the opening train.  Unfortunately she wasn't on it when we were there.  I had told S that Marie might not be in the park that day and she was ok with that.

We initially hadn't planned on doing the Enchanted Tales with Belle, but S decided the night before she wanted to. I didn't have a FP+ for this, so we made it our first priority while we were there.  After walking through Cinderella's castle to Fantasyland, we arrived at Belle's house.  It was a fun show and I was even picked to participate!

 Belle's house

I was Mrs. Wardrobe.  Belle loved my singing--she told me so!

After Belle, we wandered up to the Be Our Guest Restaurant.  We didn't do the full service dining and we weren't sure if we would be in that area for lunch, so we took a quick peek inside. I loved this window!

 Beast's castle

 Belle and her Prince

One of the restaurant dining rooms

Near the restaurant, we went to the Under the Sea-Journey of the Little Mermaid ride.  I had a FP+ for this, but didn't use it.  I switched our FP+ to Big Thunder Mountain.  S has never seen the Little Mermaid, but we have the read the book (the Disney book) so she was familiar with the story well enough.  Ariel was going to be next door, but she wasn't there yet.

 We're headed underwater (not really).

Ariel

Next we went to Peter Pan's Flight.  We really liked this ride. You get into a pirate ship and you fly over London and Neverland.  What I don't get is why this ride is SO POPULAR!!! We used our FP+ for this ride, because the wait was 60 minutes--not even an hour after park opening. The wait times on this ride rival Space Mountain and Splash Mountain.

After Peter, we crossed over to the "singing dolls," also known as It's a Small World.  S and I really liked this one-especially because it was a boat.

"It's a small world after all..."

The next ride was The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.  It was a fun ride, but the waiting might have been more exciting for S.  They had lots of interactive elements throughout the line to keep little ones busy. She especially liked the touchscreen "honey" wall.

hugging the honey wall

While waiting in line, I looked at the My Disney app and realized that Marie had actually come into the park and was doing a meet--at the same time we were supposed to see Cinderella.  What to do? I moved my Cinderella FP+ reservations and we went to see Marie on Main Street USA!!!  On the way there we spied Tiana, but she was getting ready to take a break, so we didn't get to meet her.  She was beautiful.

Tiana

The line for Marie was a lot longer than I thought.  Maybe because she and Pluto were the first characters as you walk into the park? Or maybe just everyone likes her? As we were waiting in line (Marie needed a waters break), the end of the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Parade came by and The Professor and S went up to watch it while I stayed in line.  I was just looking around when I noticed Mary Poppins and Mr. Penguin were close to us.  And they had no line-it was like no one saw them (they were in a courtyard between two buildings). When the parade passed, I grabbed S and we walked right up and spent some time talking to Mary & Mr. P! Just a little wait longer and we were able to meet Marie. She gave me a kiss and below one to S.  S wasn't quite sure about the characters and needed me as a buffer (not that I minded).

Pluto

Mr. Penguin, Mary Poppins

the family with Marie

We went back to the hotel after Marie to eat lunch and take a nice nap.  I'll finish up our day at Magic Kingdom tomorrow.

To read about Animal Kingdom, visit here.

Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom ticket booth

Even though we had a later than normal bedtime, we still got up bright and early (6:15) to get ready and get on the bus to the Animal Kingdom.  We wanted to be at the park before the gates opened to get in line and possibly see an opening show.  Animal Kingdom didn't have one on the day when we were there.

flamingos on the Kilimanjaro Safaris ride-see the truck in the background

The first thing we rode was the Kilimanjaro Safaris ride in the Africa section.  I had a Fast Pass+ for this ride, but we were able to walk right on it in the standby line (5min).  And since the weather was so warm, I was able to switch the FP+ to Kali River Rapids.

While on the safaris, it started to rain.  At first is was a mist, but a strong rain passed over us and we took shelter under an overhang.  S didn't mind, she had fun playing in the rain and splashing in puddles. Shortly after, the rain let up and we were on our way to Expedition Everest in Asia.

S & I are somewhere in that picture--I think

Again, I had a FP+ for this ride, and again, we rode via standby (20min--but not that long).  The Professor had no interest in riding and I wasn't sure S was up to it.  The only roller coaster that she had previously ridden was a little toddler coaster at Dollywood.  But she was up for it and she LOVED IT!!!  I was so proud of her.  She still tells us that it is her favorite ride.

a cute ride for the little ones

After Everest, we walked into the DinoLand USA area.  There we rode the TriceraTop Spin.  After riding that we just decided to walk around the park a bit.  We were able to meet Pooh and Tigger (hardly any wait, maybe 5-10m). Also around this time was our FP+ time for Expedition Everest.  S really wanted to ride it again, so she and The Professor rode it using the passes this time.  I think the wait time in standby was 40m (still not long for this ride)!

Pooh

Tigger

After a second turn on Everest, we were getting hungry.  We stopped at Flame Tree BBQ for lunch.  I had the pulled pork sandwich and a key lime mousse.  After barely eating the night before and a light breakfast in the room, I was HUNGRY!!!

the family with the Minnie & Mickey

After lunch we went to a character meet and saw Mickey and Minnie.  We had a FP+ for this too.  We used it, although we probably didn't have too.  I should have moved it back to Everest (if that is even possible).

The Professor didn't want to get wet. we were soaked.

We still had time before our Kali River Rapids FP+ time, so we walked around a little more and looked at more animals.  Then I changed our FP+ time to an earlier time so we could just walk right on the ride then.  I'll explain more about using FP+ in a later post. S & I walked right onto the Rapids with our FP+ and I realized that the 40m wait in standby was really more like 10.  So, when she asked to ride a second time, I was happy to oblige--especially since we didn't get very wet the first time.  But, we surely made up for it the second time.  We looked like wet rats when we got off the ride--every item of clothing we had on was soaked.  I had planned ahead & we changed out of our socks/sneaker into flip flops--although it didn't matter because S's shoes were soaked from jumping in puddles earlier in the day.  :-)

The family and Donald

We had planned on leaving for the hotel, but I saw that Donald was greeting and took a detour to see him.

After that meet, I found out Goofy & Pluto were just around the corner.  There was a line to see them and S (plus her daddy) were done for the day and just didn't want to wait.

We hopped on the bus and headed back to the hotel for a quick rest and a dip in the pool.  We considered going to Downtown Disney for dinner, but there was a band of showers headed our way and we didn't have umbrellas (and our raincoat were drying out). So, we ate at the hotel and then played in the hotel's arcade.  S won enough tokens to get some princess tattoos.

That worked out well, because the next day we went to the Magic Kingdom.

Join me for another post all about our day at the Magic Kingdom.

Disney World or Bust

This fall I decided I wanted to take S to Disney World.  I think I caught the bug while seeing friends' Instagram pictures. I seriously started considering it around late September/early October.  We bought our tickets in early December and went on January 31. Friends--that is planning late for Disney.

We are very lucky that my in-laws agreed to watch the twins. I'm pretty sure the real highlight of the trip was S being alone with us for most of 5 days. 

We decided to not to drive and to cash in some sky miles and fly. It was S's first flight and I'm sure it cut down on a lot of the drama from the backseat.

See that snow in the picture.  Brr!!!

The flight was uneventful until the Atlanta to Orlando portion. SO MUCH TURBULENCE!!! And I threw up, not once--no, but twice!!! And some got on my lap. So I entered the most Magical Place on Earth in pukey jeans.  Awesome!!!

We ate dinner at the hotel (really I just grazed The Professor's plate) and headed to our room. We rode Disney's Magical Express bus from the hotel and had opted for our checked bags to be delivered to our room. This service comes with a warning that it can take 3+ hours--and it did, even in the off season. It was around 9:45 when we got our bags, way later than we had planned to be in bed. But it's vacation, right? 

Tomorrow I'll recap our first park-Animal Kingdom!!

Follow Me to KMB Today

Today is my first posting at Knoxville Mom's Blog. I'll be contributing a couple posts a month and I am so excited.

I'd love for you to join me as I talk about the "instruction manual" that I left for the twins while we were at Disney World.  Oh wait, you didn't know we went to Disney World??  I have a lot of catching up to do this weekend.

Here's a link to KMB--and while there, take a gander at some of the other ladies.  I think you'll like it.

Happy Birthday, Everyone!!

Happy Birthday to you, and you, and you.

2014 is the year I take a break from wishing happy birthday on social media. Well, that's not true-if I happen to see it is your birthday then I might, but I am not actively searching for birthdays. 

That might sound a little harsh, but I have found myself getting stressed/feeling guilty about missing someone's birthday on Facebook or Twitter. Am I the only person who didn't wish them a happy birthday, will they think I don't really like them?? ENOUGH ALREADY!!! There are way more important things I need to focus on (ahem, 3 kids, a dog, & a husband) than FB/Twitter birthdays.

So, to ease my guilt-Happy Birthday!!!

Menu Monday

Things are a little more Christmas-y at our house. M & S put a tree up in her room & decorated the mantle. 

M is off this week, so I have more time in the kitchen. Our meals are

Sunday-homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese. Perfect for a gloomy, rainy day.

Monday-Paula Deen's wild rice and shrimp casserole

Tuesday-soup/chili dinner at the in-laws. I'm contributing Mexican cornbread and a chocolate cake. M says he is making sausage balls too.

Wednesday-Jenna's white chicken chili (jennablogs.com)

Thursday-either leftovers or salmon and veggies

Friday-whatever we don't have Thursday-or pizza

Saturday-breakfast for dinner!!

Merry Christmas!

Bah Humbug

I'm a Grinch!  Yes, for some reason my heart is two sizes too small this Chrustmas season.  It's really much more ambivalent than disliking Christmas. 

I have no desire to decorate-we have none put up yet, and have decided not to put up the tree more because of two run amucks (anyone else think of Hocus Pocus when you hear the work amuck-ok, I'll stop mixing seasons). Our plan is to decorate the mantle and put the aluminum tree in S's room. And I really need to get on this. I'm pretty sure M would let it slide and S doesn't seem to notice. Honestly, I'm so close to just handing over the presents this year.

Tomorrow is our special musical service at church. It'll be the 1 year anniversary of F & C's baptism. And we are going to the special music performance at my in-laws church tomorrow night. A said she wanted to see Christmas lights next Saturday, so we will do that. Maybe I can even talk M into going by Starbucks for a hot chocolate treat. Hopefully by then I will be in a better Christmas mood.