Disney World Trip: Part 2

Monday:

We had a pre-park opening 8:05am reservation at Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood Studios. Got on the bus at 7:40am. We originally thought that Eric, Piper, and Fletch would have to leave part way through to go sign up for Jedi Academy b/c they only open for sign-ups at 9am when the park opens. But, they let the kids sign up as soon as we got into the park, which was so awesome. It’s apparently something new that they are trying. After that, the breakfast was awesome—Deacon loved seeing Jake and the little show they put on. We had a great time. 

 

  

After breakfast, we went to the Star Wars Launch Bay, and met Chewbacca, which was SO, SO awesome. He was really cool--like the real Chewbacca from the movies. We all loved it. Left there, and saw a Star Wars short movie that compiled the whole story of all the movies into a 10-minute movie. 

 

After that, it was time for Jedi Academy. Piper and Fletch loved it. We left there, and rode Star Tours, riderswapping Deacon. We then went to the the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground, which I don’t recommend b/c it is totally chaotic and impossible to find your kids, particularly if they are really little.

After that, we ate lunch at the Backlot place (horrible service), and went to the Disney, Jr. show. Deacon loved it. Left there, and went to a special Disney Visa character meet-and-greet with Darth Vader. After that, we tried the Indiana Jones show, but thought it was kind of boring and left part way through to go to the Disney dance party,

Club Disney was really the only thing I had to my must-do list. It was so, so, so fun. A dance party with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, and Chip and Dale. Deacon and I LOVED it. We could have stayed dancing all night. It wasn't crowded so there was tons of character interaction. One of those moments that makes all the crazy moments of being a mom worthwhile.

  

By the time we left, it was about 4:30pm, and none of the kids had napped, so we went back to the hotel, got food from the food court, and then went to bed.

Disney World Trip: Part 1

We surprised the kids at Christmas with a trip to Disney as one of their presents. We got back from Disney a few days ago, and here is my very long, multi-part, picture-heavy trip report. I was emailing my mom with details of our trip every night, so this is based on those messages, but as I got more tired later in the week, the reports got shorter.

Day 1: Saturday

We had a late afternoon flight, and started our trip to the American Airlines priority lounge at DCA (accessed because of one of Eric's credit card perks). OMG, why have we waited so long to be ableto do this. It made waiting for the flight so much easier--TV for the kids, private area to run around, snacks. I kind of wish I could just go there and hang out any time. 

We boarded the plane, and then it was off to Disney. 

We didn’t get to Orlando until about 5:30pm. We just rode the tram at the airport, the Magical Express to our hotel (Art of Animation), got dinner in the food court, checked out the hotel lobby, and went to bed. The best part of all this was that Disney texted us on our way to the hotel that our room was ready and we could go straight to the room without  checking in using our MagicBands as keys. 

Sunday:
We had a really awesome day. The kids had a bit of trouble going to sleep on Saturday night so they "slept in" until about 6:30am. We ate breakfast in the room and then rode the bus to Epcot.

  

We got to Epcot around 8:30am, and did Turtle Talk with Crush, the Nemo ride, character meet and greet with Baymax from Hero 6 and then with Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy.

  

After Turtle Talk with Crush, we had a lunch at Via Napoli, which we LOVE. So yummy.

After lunch, we walked around all the "countries" and then did more rides. Fletch and Deacon slept in the stroller for most of that, while Piper loved going around to the countries and getting her stamps. 

Piper being French.

We then had FastPasses for Test Track, which we riderswapped on, so PIper and Fletch got to ride twice.

After all that, we went back to the hotel around 5pm. We got dinner in the food court for the kids, and went back to the room so they could eat. After the kids were asleep, I met up with a friend who was also staying at AoA for dessert and then I went back and went to bed. A long but great day.