Our Whirlwind Weekend Disney Trip

So, it seems I only blog when we travel and/or I have a lot of pictures to share with you.  :)  

The girls and I just returned last night from Disney World!  It was our big surprise Christmas present from Matt.  He has to be in Orlando this whole week for work, so we went down as a family this past Thursday.  We spent Friday and Saturday in the Parks, and the girls and I left him and few home last night (Sunday).  The nice part is that we didn't have to pay for his plane ticket because he's there for work.  The girls did miss 2 days of school, but they are both straight-A students, so we aren't too worried about it.  Their teachers were super supportive.

Matt planned quite a bit ahead of time through our Disney travel agent that we used for our Disney Cruise.  (I would love to recommend her, let me know if you'd like her name. It's a totally free service.)  He had reservations booked at the Disney resort, the Contemporary, plus several dining reservations.  After he surprised us on Christmas, I took over and planned our Fast Passes for rides and such.  It is a fun addiction for me.

When we left home, it was a balmy 8 degrees.  Brrr!  But we knew we were headed to Florida, so we didn't want to take coats.  Big, warm sweatshirts, it was.  Here are the girls on the plane:

When we landed in Orlando, it was cloudy and maybe a little misty, but I swear, the second, we passed under the gates for the Magic Kingdom, the sun came out.  I kid you not.  It was so nice to see green and flowers.  Abby had a cold pop up the day before we left and it just mysteriously disappeared after we got down there.  Lily had no asthma problems, and all static-y hair went away!  We needed some sun, and warm air, I think.

Our first snack at the resort had to be Mickey shaped, right?

Friday morning was brisk (50's), but sunny.  

It did our souls good to see flowers and green grass!

The entry of the Magic Kingdom:

The required castle shot

(they were cleaning or painting or something... 

the crane was there most of the day)

Waiting in line for Lily's first coaster... the Barnstormer!  Not so coincidently, this was also Abby's first coaster a few years ago.

Here she goes!

(Verdict:  She loved it.  And requested to ride it again immediately, just like Abby did 2.5 years ago.)

After the Barnstormer, we rode the newest ride at the Magic Kingdom:  The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.  It was awesome, and worth the wait.  I think it's the longest wait at the Magic Kingdom if you don't have a Fast Pass.  We wanted to ride it again but when we tried to get another Fast Pass, there weren't any available.

This is the fountain at Gaston's Tavern.  We got the popular drink, LeFou's Brew.  It's "frozen apple juice with a hint of toasted marshmallow, topped with all natural passion fruit-mango foam."  It was yummy.

We also scored a churro.  It was on our "must do" list.  Lily and I LOVED it.

More castle pics...

Spinning, spinning on the Mad Tea Party.  

(Matt refuses to ride this because he swears he will get sick.  I call him a wimp.)

The girls also checked Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain off their roller coaster list.  They were both tall enough!  We rode Haunted Mansion and they both hated it.  Too scary.

We finally stayed and watched the night show, "Wishes."

LOVED it.

Day 2

Sore feet from yesterday.

Epcot.

Mickey Waffles. 

 I swear, they do something to them to make them taste better than ordinary waffles.

The girls insisted they wanted to stand on the monorail.  This got old after about 4 minutes.  Then they sat.

Nemo 

We did Turtle Talk with Crush and Crush actually called on Lily and talked to her!  She did great!

We all rode Soarin' for the first time at Epcot.  It was amazing.  It is a ride that simulates parasailing over the state of California for those of you who don't know.  It was super cool.

The girls' last shot before we left on Sunday:

Our Disney Cruise Day 7

For Day 6, click here.

Day 7, Castaway Cay

This was an exciting day!  Today was the day we arrived at Castaway Cay (pronounced "key"), which is Disney's private island in the Bahamas.  That means that most everything on the island is included   (food, beach chairs, etc.) already in the cost of the cruise, and everything is "Disneyfied" and nice.  It is basically a beach day.

The back of the ship... Dumbo!

This was a huge fruit bar at lunch.  Lunch was a barbecue.  Hamburgers, hotdogs, ribs, potato salad, couscous, fruit, chips, etc.  They still had a self serve ice cream machine station, even at Castaway Cay!

Mount Rustmore

Paradise

Olaf at the Post Office.  I've heard you can actually  mail stuff there, but we didn't try.

This is called Pelican Plunge, but the girls aren't super into water slides and I heard it was super fast. Looks fun, though!

We had tons of fun, and stayed at the beach longer than we thought.  Our friends snorkeled and rented floats to just hang out in the water.  Our girls just wanted to play in the sand and water.  It was a great last day to our cruise.

All we had left was dinner and breakfast before we disembarked and headed home.  

That makes this the last post!  I hope you enjoyed the recap.  The girls are already asking when we are going on our next cruise, though they also just want a regular beach vacation too.

If you're interested in a Disney Cruise, we used a Travel Agent to book our cruise, let me know if you need a referral, or have any questions. :)

Our Disney Cruise Day 6

For Day 5, click here.

Day 6:  At Sea

This was our door.  It's a "thing" to decorate your door with magnets on the cruise.  I joined a group on Facebook called "Disney Cruising" that has been a wealth of information.  They referred me to a group that makes the images (with personalization) for the magnets for free, and then I just printed them on Avery magnet paper and cut them out.  They turned out really cute.   It also makes your door really easy to identify when you are walking down long hallways of doors.

 This was our last day "At Sea" so we hit the pool and just took it easy today.  :)

The grownups had reservations for brunch at Palo.  Palo is reservation only, with a dress code, and it costs extra.  Brunch is only served on At Sea days, but they also serve dinner.  It was awesome.  Delicious and fancy.  My favorite dishes were probably the sticky buns and the lasagna.  But, everything I ate was good.  We all left very, very full.

The kids at dinner...

Every night at bedtime (and between things like when we were changing clothes), we took advantage of the On Demand movies that were provided in the stateroom televisions.  They had TONS of Disney movies available:  classics, new ones, live action, animated, Pixar, adult, etc.  It was awesome.  I wish I could have it at home!  It also saved our place if we didn't finish a movie, so we could come back to it.  Some we watched included Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the Emperors New Groove, Swiss Family Robinson, Lady and the Tramp, and Chicken Little.  Movies you don't watch everyday.  It was great.

Our Disney Cruise Day 5

For Day 4, click here.

Day 5:  St. Thomas

On Day 5, we arrived at the island of St. Thomas, which is one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and you could tell.  It was a little more developed than St. Maartin.  We were already in port, when we woke up.

This was a day where we had a scheduled Port Adventure through Disney, and we did something different than our friends.  We chose a Land and Sea Package with Coral World.   After a short ride across the island to the park, we got about an hour to explore on our own Coral World, which is basically an aquarium with mostly outdoor areas.  Then, we boarded a special boat with underwater viewing area and had about an hour tour (including a feeding time).

Here are the pics...

When we got back to the ship, the girls finally got to do the Midship Detective Game (The Muppets Version).  It was really cool.  You get a personalized ID card, and it sends you to "enchanted" paintings.  When you wave your ID in front of the painting, the painting comes to life and gives you clues to solve the mystery.  It sends you all over the ship.  If you saw it in a previous post, the ship is 12 floors and HUGE.  This game was really popular.  Sometimes there was a line at the paintings.  There were 3 different versions of the game to choose from, so if you loved it, you could play again.

Pepe the Prawn's door.  If you are into the Muppets, you might know who this is.  It was a major clue in the mystery.

We ate at Animator's Palate again that night.  This night we all became animators!  We all drew people on our placemats (within specific parameters) and they collected them.  Then we started eating and watching the show on the screens....

Then, our drawings came to life!  The danced and marched to music!!!  It was awesome.  They even worked them into Disney animation, but I don't have pictures of that.  Some danced with the Aladdin genie, or Snow White, for example.  It was amazing, and I don't know how they do it.  So fun.

Abby got a special picture for this, because she spent more time decorating her cupcakes than eating them.  We were all done eating our dessert and she was still decorating.  She was very proud.

Another good day!