Disney World!!!!

We have been enjoying the nice warm Florida weather for the last week. We left for Disney World on Friday, Dec. 5 and came home late on Friday, Dec. 12. We had such a great time. Makes me wish we could afford to go to Disney more often. The kids are already asking when we go back and have a list of things they would like to do the next time we go. It will be a while though. We were extremely lucky that we were able to make this trip 2 years in a row. It will probably be a while before we are able to make it back. I wish we lived closer or were a part of the Disney Vacation Club so we could go and enjoy it more often. Such a fun vacation and so easy for the most part.

So, if you are ready to hear all about our trip and see lots of photos, keep reading!

Friday, Dec. 5, 2008

We started our day off very early. Our flight left Springfield at 5:55 a.m. That meant we left our house at 4:30 a.m. Our flight was pretty good. We arrived in Orlando somewhere between 1 and 2 p.m. We had a layover in Dallas. We flew American Airlines and from Springfield, you pretty much have to fly to Dallas to get anywhere else. When we got to our resort...the Yacht Club, they had our room ready for us!! It was a gorgeous resort and we all agreed that is our resort of choice for any future trips. Definitely worth the extra money to stay there. It has boat service to Epcot and Hollywood Studios...or you could walk to Epcot in less than 5 minutes or to Hollywood in about 15 minutes. It had a beach, a mini water park and a sand bottom pool. So awesome!

Inside the lobby, was a huge train display. So, while Michael was getting us checked in, I took the kids over to the train so they could watch it.

Here is a view of the resort from the boat dock. You can also see the Dolphin Hotel that is part of the Swan and Dolphin resort on the left side of the photo.

This is a photo from the boat dock at night. You can see the big Epcot ball.

On our first day, we headed straight to Epcot for a quick lunch at our favorite counter service place....the Boulangerie Patisserie in France. So yummy! After that, we left Epcot and took the boat over to Hollywood Studios. We headed straight towards the Tower of Terror. For the past year, the kids have talked about how they wanted to ride this ride. So, we took them on it. Zachary loved every bit of it. Taylor...she hated it. She did ride it, but through the whole ride, she clutched my arm to wear it almost went numb. We were sitting on the front row of the ride, so we were able to see everything. Zachary would have rode it over and over again if we let him, but we only rode it that one time. We did buy the photo of us on the ride. The first time we have ever purchased a ride photo, but it was too funny to pass up.


After that, it was time to go get our seats for Fantasmic. What an awesome show! This was one we weren't able to see the year before because of time, so we made sure to watch it this time. After the show was over, we headed back to the resort.


Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008

We started our day at Animal Kingdom. Since we got there early before the park opened, we were able to get a few photos in front of the Tree of Life before there were a bunch of people everywhere. One of the castmembers took this photo for us.


We had breakfast reservations at Donald's Safari Breakfast at the Tusker House. It was so good. The Jungle Juice was delicious. We had a great server and the characters were really good and came around the table several times.

The kids with Donald Duck


With Mickey


With Daisy. This was the first time we had ever met her. The kids also got to dance around our area of the restaurant with her when they had their little party time. They gave the kids instuments to play and they followed her around the restaurant playing their instruments.


With Goofy



After breakfast, we headed over to Expidition Everest to get fast passes. Then, we went on to Dinoland for a bit. We rode a few rides and then went and saw "Finding Nemo". By the time Nemo was over, it was time to head back to Everest for our ride. Zachary had been wanting to ride the "Yeti Ride." Taylor stayed with my mom while Michael and I took Zachary on the coaster. Here he is right before it was our turn to get on. We rode in the very last car of the train. Again, he loved every minute of it. He's definitely our roller coaster riding fan!

After the coaster, we met up with my mom and Taylor and took the train back to Rafiki's Planet. We were so happy when we walked in and saw Pocahontas. She was on Taylor's "must meet" list. We hadn't met her before, so Taylor was very excited. Zachary decided he didn't want to meet her. Which surprised me.

In the same area, we met Jiminey Cricket. We hadn't ever met or seen him before either. So it was a real treat!

Our last character to meet in this area was Rafiki.

After leaving this area of the park, we decided to head up to see "The Festival of the Lion King." This show was amazing. Kind of had a Cirque de Soleil feel to it. There were acrobats, fire eating people and lots of singing and dancing. Just a lot of fun!

On our way out of the park, we ran into Brer Rabbit as we were leaving. Again, we had never met or seen him before and the kids had been watching clips on Youtube from "Song of the South"...getting themselves ready for "Splash Mountain", so they were excited to meet him.

After Brer Rabbit, we saw Meeko (Pocahontas' racoon).

We headed back to the resort to rest up some before heading to the Magic Kingdom for our dinner reservation at Liberty Tree Tavern. Liberty has the best food. It's family style with several kinds of meat, mac and cheese, stuffing, green beans, rolls and yummy cobbler and ice cream for dessert. We ate at this restaurant last year and knew we had to eat here again. It's a character meal...well, until the end of 2008. For some reason, Disney has decided to take the characters out of this meal. This is a HUGE mistake in my opinion. The characters have always been so fun at this meal. I hate that they will no longer be there, but am glad we were able to experience it one more time before they take the characters out.

Before we went to dinner, we stopped in a shop and Zachary bought a Goofy doll and Taylor bought Chip and Dale dolls. At dinner they were showing them off to the characters and getting reactions from them all.

Here are the kids with Chip. When Taylor showed him the dolls she had he hid the "Dale" doll and played with the Chip doll. It was pretty cute.

Here he is giving her a big chipmunk hug before he left the table.

Here they are with Dale. If you notice...the Chip doll has been placed behind the chair and only the Dale doll is in the photo. That was done by Dale. So fun!

Here are the kids with Minnie. She was full of lots of hugs and kisses for them.

Here they are with Goofy. He was so excited to see Zachary's Goofy doll that he wrote extra in his autograph book.

Finally we saw Pluto. He really put on a show for us. When he saw the toys that Zachary and Taylor had, he shoved them all in his mouth and pretended to chew on them...just like a dog would do. When other people in the restaurant saw him doing this, they stopped eating and were standing up to watch the show he was putting on. Everyone in our section was laughing. I bet after seeing the way the characters reacted to the stuffed animals, more people will be buying animals before going to dine!

Here he is eating the animals. You can kind of see them hanging out the side of his mouth.

Sunday, Dec. 7, 2008

We started our day off with reservations for breakfast at Chef Mickey's. It was alright. In my opinion, Donald's breakfast was better and you saw pretty much the same characters. So, not sure we will do Mickey's breakfast again. It was neat though because it was inside the Contemporary Hotel and we were able to ride the monorail over to Magic Kingdom when we were done.

Here are the kids with Mickey.

Hugging Pluto

With Minnie

With Donald

With Goofy

After breakfast, we took the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. We watched the opening show for the park and then went in and headed over to Tomorrowland. We watched the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor...that was really cute and then went to Buzz Lightyear's ride. One of our favorites. After that, we hung out quite a bit in Fantasyland riding Dumbo, the teacups, we rode "It's a Small World" 3 times during this trip... 2 times too many...in my opinion. It's cute, but 3 times is a bit much. We finally told the kids the ride was broken, so we wouldn't have to ride it again. It's 10 minutes long.

Here we are with the castle behind us. We were standing more on the Tomorrowland side of the castle. Main Street was hectic and if we had stopped to take a photo, we would have been ran over.

Here are the kids and Michael in a teacup. Mom and I rode in our own. The kids wanted to spin really fast and we didn't want to. It gave me a chance to get some cute photos of them together.

I have a lot more photos of our day at Magic Kingdom, but we would be here forever. We also took the kids over to ride Splash Mountain before we left for the day to go and rest. They loved it. I got soaked. I had taken some ponchos and was glad I did. The hood of my poncho wouldn't stay up and my hair and face were completely soaked. Zachary and I were sitting in the front seats of our boat.

After resting at our resort, we headed back to Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. So much fun. We watched "T'was the Night Before Christmas." A really great show of Mickey telling the story with lots of singing and dancing. I have tons of photos of that.

Then, we rode quite a few rides and met some more characters.

The Queen of Hearts. This was another first for us. We had never seen her out and about before.

The Mad Hatter

Taylor with Woody and Bullseye. Michael had taken Zachary to go ride "Big Thunder Mountain." Taylor didn't want to, so mom and I stayed with her and found a spot for the parade in Frontierland. I had went across to get cocoa and cookies (a freebie for the party...they have stations set up all over the park where they give these out). When I walked in, I saw Woody and Bullseye. I ran back and grabbed Taylor and then called Michael. They were on their way back. Toy Story is Zachary's favorite and we had never seen Bullseye before.

By the time Zachary and Michael made it back, Bullseye had went away and Jessie had came out in his place. I felt bad for Zachary because he really wanted to meet Bullseye. We never saw him out again the entire trip.

After the parade, we headed back to the resort...it was after midnight!

Monday, Dec. 8, 2008

This was a big Epcot day for us. We decided to walk over to Soarin' and ride it. We spent the majority of the day going through the World Showcase part of Epcot, but it wasn't open when we go there, so we rode Soarin'. The amazing thing was that Zachary got freaked out and wouldn't ride it...so then Taylor wouldn't ride. Mom ended up getting off and waiting with them while Michael and I rode.

On our way to Soarin', we ran into Mary Poppins.

After meeting Mary and riding Soarin', it was time to head back to the the World Showcase for our lunch reservation at Le Cellier in Canada. The food was awesome. It's a steak house. We had never ate there before, but most likely will again!

A photo of us outside the restaurant in Canada. In the World Showcase, they have areas in each country called, "KidCot". The kids get a mask and then go around to each country and get a stamp and a paper shape to put on their mask. Zachary and Taylor had a lot of fun doing this and it was our mission of the day to find all the KidCot stations.

On a bridge over the Coy Fish pond in Japan.

In Germany with Snow White and Dopey.

In England with Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore.

In Morocco, meeting the Genie and Jasmine. Aladdin was no where to be found.

In China, with Mushu. He is Mulan's sidekick.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

We started our day off at Hollywood Studios. We were there before the parked opened and headed straight back to Toy Story Mania. This is the coolest ride. It's a 3-D ride that is a carnival theme. You go through in your cars with your guns. There are several different games throughout it...balloon popping, plate breaking, ring toss, and a few others. Since it's 3-D, when you break a plate or pop a balloon, the particles fly towards you. Some of the balloons are filled with water, so you get splashed with a little water or if something blows up towards you, you can feel the wind as it flies by. We rode this ride so many times. It is just a blast. Definitely my new favorite!

This is Zachary outside of Toy Story Mania with one of the toy soldiers.

After we finished up in Pixar Place, we headed over to Luigi's Garage to see Lightning McQueen and Mater.

We also rode Star Tours several times and rode Toy Story a few more times. We also stopped to watch the High School Musical 3 Show. Taylor is a huge fan. She sang along with all the songs!

Before we knew it, it was time to go find a spot for the Block Party Bash Parade that features Pixar characters. This was by far the best parade. It is bright and loud and the characters pull the kids out into the streets to dance with them. On this day, the kids got to dance with Jessie!

There are also characters from Monsters Inc, Incredibles and Bugs Life that are a part of this parade. We were just so happy we were able to stand in the area that the Toy Story characters were at.

After the parade, we headed back to the resort to rest for a bit. We had dinner reservations for that night at the castle.

When you arrive at the castle for a meal, the first thing you do is have your photo taken with Cinderella. She is the host of the night, but this is the only time you see her.

At the dinner, the mice and the Fairy Godmother come around. The Fairy Godmother doesn't go to each table like the mice...which is a shame and I don't understand why she doesn't. She does sing and entertain.

Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008

This was another Epcot day. This time we stayed more towards the front of the park and rode rides. We did have a late breakfast reservation for the Princess breakfast in Norway. It was a good breakfast...the service was really slow, but we got to meet Mulan, and that was the most important thing!

This breakfast is hosted by Belle, so when you walk in, you have your photo taken with her and then that is the only time you see her.

(for whatver reason, while we were on this trip, Zachary developed this smile. It looks like he is frowning. We started calling it his "Chandler smile." If your a "Friends" fan, then you will remember the episode where he and Monica tried to get their engagement photos taken and his smile was horrible.)

After we were seated, the princesses started coming around.

Snow White

Jasmine

Sleeping Beauty...who refered to Taylor as her twin.

Mulan. Zachary was funny and got down on the floor to show her his moves. He was kicking his legs in the air. She told him that he would be perfect for the Emperial Army. Then, Taylor started singing "Reflection" to her. It was so sweet. Mulan started singing with her and told Taylor she had such a pretty voice.

After breakfast, we rode Test Track a few times...another favorite of the kids. We also went to the Nemo Pavillion and saw Crush. Then, the kids played in the shark area for a bit. This is them sticking their heads our of Bruce's mouth!

After we were done at Epcot, we headed back to the resort. The kids went swimming with Michael while mom and I rested and started packing a little bit. That night, we went to Beaches and Cream... a little soda shop restaurant at our resort. The food was really good! We then decided to order their famous "Kitchen Sink" dessert. It is 8 scoops of ice cream...every topping they have available..including chunks of candy bars, brownies and angle food cake. They also put a whole can of whipped cream on the top. It was really good, but so huge!! The pictures do not do it justice.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

This was the only day on the trip where the weather didn't cooperate. There were really heavy thunderstorms. So, we decided that if we were going to go to a park in the rain, we would go to Hollywood Studios where we could spend time watching shows and not get too wet. I did have the ponchos for all of us and those were great to have!

The first thing we did when we go there was go to Toy Story Mania.

Here are Michael and Zachary on the ride.

At the end of the ride, they show the top 3 scores for the day. I had the top score at that point. It was early and quickly was beaten by someone else, but it was my shining moment!

After riding, we headed across the street to meet Woody and Buzz. Really to meet Buzz since we had already met Woody.

Then, we watched Beauty and The Beast and did some shopping while we waited for the storm to pass. There were 40-50 mph winds with the storm. Since we were so close to the time for the Block Party parade, we decided to hang around and see it again. This is us waiting for the parade in front of the Mickey hat!

Parade shots! Love the one of Mr. Potato Head...his eyes are in upside down!

That night, we headed back to Hollywood for the Osborne Lights. They are so pretty!

This is a photo I took of the Boardwalk Resort...which was across the lake from our resort. So pretty!

Friday, December 12, 2008

Our last day. We spent it at Magic Kingdom. Taylor had wanted to meet Tinkerbelle and all the other times we had went, the line had been over an hour long. So, we had skipped it. This time, we were determined to be at ToonTown when they opened the gate. We made it and were in the second group that got to go back and meet the Pixies.

While we were meeting the Pixies, Zachary and Michael had went off to ride rides. They had gotten off of Space Mountain, when they were given Dream Fast Passes. Zachary was so proud. Called it his, "Key to the World."

After riding a few more rides and seeing Mickey's PhilharMagic Show, we headed over to Adventureland. We finally found Aladdin!

After leaving the Aladdin area, Zachary immediately spied out Captain Hook and Mr. Smee!

Then, it was time for Captain Jack's Pirate Tutorial. This was the best time! The first pirate asked Zachary to help him with his rope. He had Zachary stand on the end of his rope while he stretched it out to make their "stage" area.

When Captain Jack came out, he asked a few kids to help him out. Zachary immediately went running up. They gave the kids sticks to use as swords and wanted them to hit the other pirate's stick twice, then jab him in the belly and then point and say, "Hey, look the Governor's Daughter!" When it was Zachary's turn, he refused to jab the pirate in the belly. he just kept swinging his stick. Finally Capt. Jack stepped in and told everyone that Zachary was just a little "Crazy." We were all laughing so hard...I had tears in my eyes. Then, in a high pitch tone, Capt Jack said, "Look the Governor's Daughter"...like he was saying it for Zachary. It was so funny. Zachary told us that he didn't want to stop fighting because he didn't want his turn to be over. He's no dummy!

At the end, they called up several of the kids to get their "Pirate Certificates." Taylor decided she would be a part of this as well.

After we were done, we ate lunch, rode a few more rides and then moved on to our next adventure...getting home. Seems American Airlines thought it would be a good idea to keep swithing the flight times. We were able to get seats on an earlier flight home, but when we found out about this flight, we only had a little over an hour to get to the airport and checked in. Somehow, we made it. I don't know how. All week, we had chosen the wrong lines to get in...always picking the longer lines. This time, we made it through security in a matter of minutes...even though it was packed and were able to get across the airport to our gate with moments to spare. I think we had God pushing us along to make sure we got home because we had to get home...there was no other way about it. When we did finally arrive at our airport...we had to fly through Dallas, our luggage was missing. It was 24 hours later before they finally found it. With the way we were treated by American, it will be a long time before I fly on their airline again...if ever. We had a great trip and a wonderful time. I hate that it ended the way it did, but the good memories of our trip far outweigh what we went through to get home.