The drive was very uneventful, just the way we like it, yea! We stopped at a Cracker Barrel to eat lunch and for a potty break and made it to Disney's All-Star Sports Resort at 3:30. It was exactly 7 hours (remember we're on CST and Disney is on EST) from our front door to our hotel. I quickly got us checked in, got our tickets and maps for the parks, and to Ellie's excitement, birthday pins for both her and Craig. We checked out our room, unloaded the car, packed a bag for the parks and headed off to the bus stop for the Magic Kingdom.
After a quick bus ride, we were there, the Magic Kingdom! I went over to the ticket center and enquired about switching our 5 day tickets with park hopper add-ons to Seasonal FL Resident annual passes (there are blackout dates on the seasonal tix-can't go during the busiest times: between Christmas and New Years, one week in March, and June, July, and 1/2 of August). Not only was Disney able to accommodate us, we were refunded over $80!!!! I had to laugh when I saw the passes that they gave us, Ellie's has Cinderella on it, mine has Minnie Mouse, and Craig has the 7 dwarfs on it with Dopey in the front...how fitting!!!!
Ellie was so excited to get her first look at Cinderella's Castle and asked to right to it to see if Cinderella might be there. We warned her that she was a very busy princess and might be off somewhere else, but Disney provided us some magic and as we approached, we noticed a show was about to start. Of course, all the princesses were in a show in front of the castle including Cinderella, herself. I got a, "I told you mom, she'd be at the castle!" scolding from Ellie during the show. It was so sweet to see Ellie watching the show and every now and again, a little "oh" or "ah" would escape her. I had tears rise up and I got a little choked up watching her heartfelt reaction to it all. Several times she reminded me that at Disney World the princesses are in deed real!
When the show was over, we went to Toon Town to see where the Big Cheese lives. Hayden and Dad played on Donald's Boat and Ellie and I went to ride Goofy's Barnstormer roller coaster. I was a bit nervous at her reaction to the ride, as she had never ridden a roller coaster, but she loved it and begged to go on it again! We were running short of time, as we had to get to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for our 8:40 reservation at Boma, so we quickly toured Minnie and Mickey's houses and went to Fantasyland. We were able to walk on to the Mad Hatter Tea Cups and Cinderella's Carosel. We rode the horses right behind Cinderella's favorite horse (the one with the gold ribbon on it's tail)! Then off to the bus stop to get to Animal Kingdom Lodge for our dinner.
We arrived at AKL a bit early for our reservation so we wandered around the hotel for a while. The kids played on a little playground for a while and at some point Hayden managed to completely soak his shorts (I think he sat in a fountain). Thankfully, I had a second set of clothes for him!
We all really enjoyed eating at Boma, especially me, definitely one we'd eat at again. It is an African inspired buffet with lots of new things to try. I managed to feed the kids off the all the really interesting selections, avoiding the "kid" area of mac & cheese and chicken fingers, but Craig couldn't resist getting some french fries. At one point he had an entire plate loaded up with hummus and chips-whatever?! We were all exhausted after dinner and went back to our room and quickly feel asleep.
1 comment:
Emily enjoyed the pix but was full of envy. y'all got some cute kids.
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