Reid and Angie's Place: Disney World--Days 1 and 2 (You don't have to read it, just enjoy the pictures!)

Day 1--Our family left for a fun trip to Disney World in Orlando on Saturday October 27th. We had a 10am flight out of Denver airport with a 2 hour lay-over in Indianapolis. The boys were pretty good travelers. This was our first time flying in 5 years without dragging strollers and car seats. It was so nice to only have to worry about our carry-ons, Finn's vest, and the boys. I will admit that by the end of the day I wished we had a stroller for Finn, as we had a hard time finding the Magical Express at the airport and were walking quite a bit. But, we did come up with an interesting solution that made many around us chuckle. We found that we could sit Finn on top of our suitcases and wheel them all together. He LOVED the ride and it helped a bit! Poor kid was exhausted but was so excited to finally be on the Magical Express that he didn't fall asleep until we actually made it all the way to our room at the resort. Miracle! One other thing I learned this day is to never, ever have a lay-over in Indianapolis. There is NOTHING in that airport.....nothing. The best we could find for lunch was a place called King David's HotDogs and man they were bad. My hotdog came only 20% cooked and I couldn't stomach it all. I didn't blame the boys for their less than enthusiastic response as well. We ate our buns and my chili from the top of the dog and left the rest for the trash. It was a LONG day of travel and we were happy to make it to our resort. We even grabbed a bell hop and paid him for a ride on his golf cart because we were just done walking. But we had made it and we were excited for the days ahead!

On the plane--this may be the only picture from our whole trip where he has his mouth closed.

Finn was pretty well-behaved on the plane....for the most part.

Playing race cars at our layover

FINALLY! The Magical Express

Kai's excitement! And then the moment our bus drove under the sign that glowed
"Welcome to Disney World" was awesome!

Day 2--The Magic Kingdom--Sunday October 28th we let the boys sleep in as long as they could. I was quite impressed that it was a quarter 'til 9 before they started stirring for the day. That worked out according to plan as we were able to make it to the Magic Kingdom right around 11am (which was my goal for the day). Of course, right as we walked in there was a parade in full-swing that blocked most of Town Square and so we were stuck right there just taking it all in. Once we were able to move up Main Street we took a hard right and headed straight for Tomorowland. As you enter that part of the park there's a sign over head declaring "Tomorrowland" and it was at that point that Kai's feet began to slow down. We didn't make it all that far into the land before Kai just stopped and refused to keep on going. And then there were tears. Poor kid was just so overwhelmed by everything. And he was scared of what the rides were going to be. The line for the Buzz Lightyear ride was quite short but he wouldn't budge. So, we decided to pull a Fast Pass for that ride and head on over to the People Mover, where he could see that there were no seat belts required and nice, slow moving cars. So, our very first ride was the People Mover. Ha! From there we ventured over to the Tomorrowland Speedway and then back to the Carousel of Progress before finally heading back to the Buzz Lightyear ride. Along the way that morning I made a mistake that left me upset with myself. I dropped Finn's Guest Assistance card. See, on our way in we had stopped at Guest Relations and explained that Finn was more likely to wear down and dehydrate faster and that he needed to stay out of the sun. So, they gave us a guest card that when presented would allow us to use an alternate entrance. We hadn't even used it once and I had lost it. Turns out that I wouldn't stay mad at myself for too long because the next day we got an even better deal, but that's for my next post!

Now, back to Buzz Lightyear. Kai was finally less apprehensive and Finn had taken a downward spiral. We made it through the line with Finn crying and having to be dragged and carried the whole way. I thought that once we made it on the ride it would get better, and it did, but not much. He wanted nothing to do with it and was more than happy to run right out of there. So, we knew our time in Tomorrowland was done and decided to head to the slower world of Fantastyland.

I don't remember exactly the order of things from here but I do know that the boys rode the carousel and "It's a Small World" and then we took in Mickey's PhilharMagic. It was at this show that we saw something that would be repeated for our entire trip--Finn does NOT like 3D/4D movies. He screamed as Donald fell and cried when things jumped out at him. It was not good. Finally it was time for our lunch at the Liberty Tree Tavern. We grabbed Fast Passes for Peter Pan and took off to the restaurant.

Ok, for my friends who are reading this and trying to plan their own Disney journey, here are my two cents on the Dining Plan. It's AWESOME! And worth it if you don't pay full-price for the plan (we got it "free"). However, I don't know that I would book sit down meals in the middle of day like that again. Your "reservation" seems to be taken a little loosely and you still end up waiting a bit for a table. And then the meal takes an hour or so. So, if you do have a sit-down lunch like we did this day, make sure to plan at least an hour and half for it. That being said, the food was AWESOME and worth it. I got the Pilgrim's Feast, which is a traditional Thanksgiving dinner and it was so good that even pregnant I could it eat (and I normally can't do meat during a pregnancy).

Anyway, after lunch it was back to Fantasyland to ride Peter Pan, the Mad Tea Party, Winnie the Pooh, and then Dumbo. After our spin on the teacups we saw the White Rabbit just taking a stroll. We were able to race up to him and be just the second or third ones in line for his autograph and pictures. It was our first character autograph and Kai later said it was his favorite part of the day. Finn on the other hand wanted to be NO WHERE near the large furry animal. This fear of his actually intensified throughout our trip and never, ever got better. Drats!

Once we were done in Fantastyland we hopped on the train and took a ride over to Adventureland. There we took rides on the Jungle Cruise, the Magic Carpets, and finally Pirates of the Caribbean. The line was so short at that point (less than 5 minutes) that we walked the boys right through it without telling them what we were doing. Finn, however, freaked the minute the waiting line got dark (which is right at the door pretty much) and Kai got nervous as we approached the ride. In the end, Kai LOVED the ride and Finn sat next to me the entire time trembling. The poor little guy was shaking for the whole ride. I shouldn't have taken him on it, but you don't know until you try, right? Hindsight is always 20/20, though.

At that point we felt good about our day and were ready to head back to the hotel. The crowd at the park was starting to pick up for the night's Halloween party and the temps were dropping a bit. However, both boys wanted to ride the Astro Orbiter, so we headed back to Tomorrowland for that. We met our longest line of the day there (about 20 minutes or more) but the boys enjoyed the ride. (My insight, waiting 20 minutes for a ride that lasts no more than 60 seconds is a bit of a let-down, but my boys don't agree, so that's good.) And then we headed back to the resort.

That night we had dinner at the quick-service restaurant in our hotel and headed back to bed. The boys were still on Colorado time and so we were running with that as much as we could. On the agenda for the next day: Epcot.

Waiting for the bus at the resort

Arriving at the Magic Kingdom

Ahhhh...the safety of the People Mover

Finn was HAPPY!

Finn got to drive his own race car!

Behind us (making sure we didn't get bumped)

It's a Small World (forever known as the "Happy Boat Ride")

Possibly Finn's favorite ride of the whole park--the carousel

My favorite picture of the day--trying to pull the sword out of the stone. Reid just happened to take the picture at the right moment where it looks like even Finn is trying to help instead of just trying to climb up, which is what he was really doing!