A dream trip for a first timer

[PrincessCaitlin]

I'm in

I can't wait to read more

 

[marcielm]

Thanks! It was a much longer ride than I had imagined!

 

[marcielm]

Thanks, I think we had a perfect first trip! I'm ready to go back for trip #2, and #3, and #4, and so on....

 

[marcielm]

Thanks, getting ready to add some more updates!

 

[marcielm]

So this morning I insisted that we get up early & head out the door. I was determined to make it over to Hollywood Studios as early as possible, preferably for rope drop. We didn’t quite make it that early, but we were there by about 9:10, which was good enough to go for the mad dash to pick up FP’s for Toy Story. And boy was I glad we did! The line by the time I made over there was about a 15 minute wait, and our return time was for 11:30am. While I was in line, Fred & the kids all hopped into The Little Mermaid. They finished up shortly just a little bit after I got out of line, which was nice because it gave me a chance to check over my book. Fred said the show was good, but the sea witch had scared Meredith. She even told me that “the little mermaid scared her”, when I asked if it was the sea witch, she said yes.

From the Little Mermaid, we hit the Playhouse Disney show. I really wanted to catch as much “little kid” stuff as I could this morning, because we were meeting our friends up later in the day. I was pretty sure their two boys (the same ages as our boys) didn’t want to hit all the preschooler stuff. Plus, Meredith needed a calm & fun thing after getting scared in TLM. She loved the Playhouse Disney show, especially when the bubbles started falling. She got up and jumped & danced, and the boys enjoyed dancing with her. They really are great big brothers!
Here is a picture of the host at Playhouse Disney. He really did a great job!

Next we headed over to the Great Movie Show. The line wasn’t too bad (about 20 minutes), and I’m really beginning to get the hang of how leave the stroller in one spot, and do multiple things in the area. While we were in line, we saw the carousel horse that Mary Poppins rode in the movie. Aidan thought that was pretty cool! We tried to get a picture of it, but it turned out too dark, and you can hardly tell what it is! Here is a picture of the chimney sweep scene from the movie, Aidan’s favorite part (again a little dark, due to not being able to use the flash).

Here is our “tour guide” and the gangster. If you haven’t done this ride, you should as it was really neat! Of course, this is one of the rides that Meredith learned that “dark means loud” and had her ears covered. She didn’t care very much for the gun fight in this section.

While we were on the ride, our friend called and said they were at the park. I told them where we were, and that we had FP’s for Toy Story in about 30 minutes. They said that was fine, they were going to go pull FP’s for ToT & try to get on the Rocking Roller Coaster. Once we were off the Great Movie Ride, we walked around the corner to the Toy Story ride. We checked out the little gift shop that’s right there (Fred had seen a little boy with a bucket of the little green men, and was hoping to see if they had them). I loved the décor of the streets in this area. I wanted Fred to get a picture of the Scrabble board for my mom (an avid Scrabble fan), but he wouldn’t do it. We also saw one of the green army men in the area, and I wanted a picture of him as well… but Fred was ready to park the stroller & hop in the FP line. This is why I should’ve been manning the camera when we were walking through the parks! The ride was a lot of fun. The girls enjoyed it as well (I love that Disney is so rider friendly, and they were able to hang with us on just about everything!).
Here’s a shot of Buzz that I was able to get…

Afterwards, we called our friends again and found out they had FP’s for a little later, and at this point we were getting hungry for lunch. I had wanted to go to Pizza Planet, seeing as how Toy Story had been such a major part of our lives with two boys in the house for so many years. We walked by the High School Musical show, and watched a bit of it (a new favorite in the house, now that we’ve outgrown Toy Story)

I have to say, next to the fun of MK, DHS is my favorite park. I love how the streets are laid out, and the great buildings everywhere. I really enjoyed walking around to find the Pizza Planet, and seeing all the neat sections they had.

I was thrilled to see that PP was near the Muppet section, another favorite of mine! We grabbed a table out in the courtyard, and I headed in to get lunch. The line was forever long, but I must say it was well worth it! This was some great pizza for fast food park stuff. It was much better than I had expected. We spent a little extra money & got Aidan his own adult-size pizza, because I knew Meredith would finish a kid-size one on her own. While we were there, our friends happen to come by, just getting out of the Muppet show. They chatted for a bit, and then said they were heading off for the stunt show. Once we finished lunch we went into the Muppet show (another great 4D attraction by Disney… these things amaze me!)

After the show, Meredith read the map & told us where we needed to be:

She did a great job, and soon we were near the Stunt Show, waiting for our friends to come out. Once they joined us, we went and did what all boys ages 7-9 love most. STAR TOURS. Here are some pictures of us standing in line.
Truitt with the Fore boys:

Me and the girls, in our typically system for standing in line, Meredith hanging out & Coco in the sling:

Looking back, I wish the girls & I had gone and done something else, because M & C were too small to ride (which I knew, because we had gotten rider swap tickets). We just stayed with everyone so we could chat with our friends up until we got to entrance section (where you actually went into the building) and then we hopped out & headed for the exit… where we waited an additional 20 minutes or more for them to come off the ride. Had I really put some thought into it, we would’ve left the group and gone over to Beauty & the Beast or something, catching up with everyone later. All four of the kids loved Star Wars, and I think they even had more fun in the Star Wars gift shop at the end of the ride because when I asked all of them if they wanted to go back through with me in the rider swap, no one wanted to go! That’s okay, I didn’t have to ride it, and I was happy to see if we could try and catch something else before we had to head out for our ADR that evening.

At this point our friends were getting hungry (it was getting close to 3:30, and they hadn’t eaten lunch!) so they decided to head off and grab a bite to eat, and we opted to walk around a bit & grab a quick snack (the boys wanted some ice cream). The girls were getting sleepy, and had been napping off and on in the stroller, so after looking around a little more, we decided to head out and go back to the hotel. The boys were again begging to use the pool, so we figured we would go back & let them jump in for a while before time for us to head over to 1900 Park Fare for our ADR, which I believed to be at 7:30. Once we got back to the room, I decided to double check the time (and a good thing) because our ADR was actually for 6:30 not the 7:30 like I had thought. The boys weren’t happy, because this meant they only got 30 minutes to swim, rather than the hour I had told them. I’m surprised they made it 30 minutes to be honest, because the wind was quite cool & Meredith & Truitt both were shivering each time they got out of the water.
You can almost see how blue her lips are!

Aidan enjoying the pool:

Truitt & Meredith playing together:

Up next… our Wednesday night ADR… 1900 Park Fare with Cinderella!

 

[marcielm]

Once I got everyone out of the pool, we went back up to the hotel to get ready to go to the Grand Floridian for dinner. This is a night I was looking forward to because it was a Cinderella character meal, and Cindy is Meredith’s FAVORITE princess. When I booked the ADR, I thought it was for a meal with Mary Poppins & Alice & the Mad Hatter, so I was quite surprised to learn that the evening dinner was a Cindy dinner. Meredith insisted that she wear her Princess twirl skirt I had made her, even though I had wanted her to wear it the next night for the Storybook Princess Dinner. I was bummed once again that I didn’t get all the t-shirts made I had intended to make, because I had one with Cinderella that I had intended for the girls to wear this night.

We got out of the hotel in good time, and headed over to MK to swap to the monorail to reach the GF for our dinner. When we got to the monorail, I told Fred & the boys to ask if they could ride up front with the driver. They were able to, and they said it was a really neat experience. Here are some pictures Fred was able to snap during their ride:
Two shots leaving the station at MK

And one coming into the Contemporary:

Upon getting into the GF and being seated, we immediately saw the Step-mother from Cinderella. She said she felt for me, having 4 kids. We took our picture with her, as two moms that sometimes have more than we can handle. Meredith is already getting her “I’m not to sure about this” face on for the dinner.

Next we had Anastasia come by. Meredith is much better about having them sign autographs than she was with the other characters. She still isn’t overly giddy about having her picture taken. Anastasia commented that Meredith had pigtails, and they she couldn’t stand for her mom to put her hair up, and that’s why she didn’t wear them. We told Anastasia that often there is a battle for Meredith to have her pigtails as well (see pictures in Friday’s ADR post, coming soon!).

We had Anastasia pose with the boys also… they didn’t want pictures taken with silly princesses, but we teased them that it was better than poses of them getting kisses!

We also met Drizella, who commented that she also had her hair in pig tails like Meredith, but apparently she doesn't fight her mom when she gets hers put up.

We continue with our dinner while formal character introductions are made in the center of the resturaunt, and soon the kids have moved onto dessert. Meredith is eating her ice cream when she spots Prince Charming coming her way (he is about 3 tables from us, stopping and greeting at each one). She pushes away her ice cream, and starts to get her autograph papers ready. It was so cute. Once he is there she just looks sweetly at him as he talks to her, and calls her “princess”. She has him sign her page, and then we take a picture. It cracks me up that she still has ice cream on her mouth (I didn’t notice until after he left the table!)

Here is one that shows just how “charming” Prince Charming is…

Meredith had this cute demeanor about her the entire time he was there, like she “knew” he was cute and Cinderella’s honey or something. And I have to admit, he was pretty charming.

Finally, we see Cinderella heading our way. I thought Meredith had gotten excited over the Prince showing up, so just imagine my surprise when Cindy finally made it to our table. If Meredith was a puppy, she'd have left a small puddle for us to clean up!

Once again Meredith pushed all of her ice cream away, and got all of her papers ready for signing, and sat there perfectly still with her arms folded waiting for Cindy to come to us. She gave her one page to sign, and then a second, and then a third. All the time Cindy is happily signing everything that is being slid her way. Fred finally tells Meredith “Honey, I think that’s enough. Why don’t we take your picture?” Cindy laughed, and Aidan said “Dad, if you hadn’t said anything I think Meredith would’ve kept her here all night!” Fred laughed & told Cindy that she was at the “groupie” table, and Meredith was collected some extra autographs to try and sell on eBay. She got a good laugh out of that! This time, we finally got a picture that shows just how happy Meredith was to be Disney World… it’s the first “real” smile with a character, and to be honest, the only one.

I have to say, this is the most beautiful Cinderella we saw at the parks. We got to meet her again on Thursday night, but this one was much prettier!

When dinner was finished, and all was packed up, we headed out to stroller parking to grab our stuff and head out. Of course, we spot the Mary Poppins topiary tree, and had to try and get a shot (we didn’t see it when we got there, as only Fred went out to park the stroller on the courtyard). I’m sad it was a bit dark, but Aidan still wanted his picture with her….

We headed back to the hotel, knowing that the next morning was the EMH for MK. We were once again trying to make it as early as possible, so we could really do MK right! We still had over half the park to see, and only 2 days left!

 

[MomsOf2boys]

Awww... how adorable! She put on her very best princess face for those pictures!

 

[kathymc]

what an adorable family you have and the shirts (especially the boys hats shirts) are great.

thanks for sharing - looking forward to more

 

[marcielm]

Thanks so much!

 

[marcielm]

Thank you!

 

[angela3676]

I have really enjoyed reading your trip report. I love all the pictures.

 

[marcielm]

Thanks!

 

[marcielm]

This is for all the first timers out there. Please read the following, it might just save someone’s DH or DW while at Disney.

Now, that being said, what you are about to read is a recap of what happened on the morning of Thursday, March 19th. Since the occurrence of these instances, things have calmed down, and people have been forgiven. And so begins the story of the only blowup/meltdown/what were you thinking moment during our week at Disney.

Thursday morning was the EMH for MK, and I had every intention of being there before 8:00am when they opened. We had a busy day planned as far as getting to see the remainder of MK, because my plans were for us to spend another half day at Epcot on Friday (our last day/travel home day). It all started in the middle of the night, when Aidan or Meredith one woke up feeling not so good. They had both had tummy troubles throughout the week (for Aidan to not want to eat something is a clue in itself that he isn’t feeling great). Each of them was feeling fine in the morning, but man did that wake up call come early for me. Not to mention Coco decided it was a good morning to wake up early and want to eat before I could get out of bed & start getting ready.

Anyway, Fred hopped right up, knowing we needed to get out the door asap, and got ready. Just as he finished and I was about to shower, he said he would take all the tickets and go ahead and head over to MK to pull some FP’s. It was now about 7:50, and I knew we were going to miss much of the extra hour, but still wanted to be there well before 9:00 when the regular open time was. I asked Fred if he would just get the girls dressed (I had their clothes out), make sure the boys were good, and I’d hop in the shower real quick and be ready to go in 15 minutes (yes, this is possible for me!). He insisted that he go ahead without us, and asked again what ride he should pull the FP’s for. I told him that Splash Mt would be best, since Aidan wasn’t going to ride BTMRR or Space Mt. He then heads out the door, leaving me with all four kids to manage/break up fights/feed/dress as well as finish getting myself ready.

Once I get us all together, I’m loading the girls in the stroller (about 40 minutes after he has left… now close to 8:30) and trying to get out the door when the phone rings. It’s Fred.
F: “I can only get one FP.”
M: “What do you mean you can only get one FP?”
F: “The machine said something like ‘unvalid ticket’.”
M: “Oh, I guess since you didn’t scan our tickets at the main gate you can’t use them to pull the FP’s.”
F: “Yeah, that’s what it looks like.”
M: “Okay, well we are heading out the door now. Start heading back up to the front & we will be there in about 30 minutes.”

I hang up. Fuss something about it not working under my breath when Aidan makes a great comment… “Why doesn’t dad go back up and scan our tickets and then go back and pull the FP’s?” To which I explain that might be a good idea, but I don’t think he’d have the time to make the trek twice. It did make me think about the CM’s that had been at Toy Story in DHS the day before, who were working the FP machines. I tried to call Fred back and see if he could ask one of them to manually punch out 3 more FP’s for the other tickets that he had in his hand. He didn’t answer. I grumble under my breath *again*.

We go stand in line for the bus. This is a nightmare for me. One, because our “normal” system was for Fred to man the stroller, I sling Coco & hold Meredith’s hand, and each of the boys are carrying backpacks/diaper bags for us. Now, without Fred, I’ve got to find a way to man the stroller, while slinging Coco. Luckily the boys are a great help, and hold M’s hand for me (they had done this a time or two already). The bus comes, a nice gentleman helps me with the stroller, and we are on our way to MK. I again try to call Fred, with no answer still, and still more grumbling by me (something about sticking the phone where he might actually FEEL it vibrate when I call). I call a third time as we pull up to the drop off for MK. You guessed it, still no answer.

The kids & I unload off the bus, I put down the stroller, strap both girls in and head for the bag check area, hoping to see Fred just on the other side of the turnstiles. He is NOWHERE to be seen. It’s now 9:10, and there are people beginning to show up. I call, and call, and call. Take a side trip to the restroom for Meredith (lucky to find out there is one just outside the turnstiles). Come back out & start calling again. I’m pretty much fuming, and hitting SEND as soon as I hang up. A second later I get a text message that says this: Wait a minute.

EXCUSE ME?!?!?!?!? We have been standing outside the gates for over 15 minutes at this point and he has the nerve to tell me to WAIT A MINUTE?!?!?! I reply with this: FOR WHAT?!?!?!?!? Now my grumbling is getting louder, and the boys are beginning to wonder if their dad is going to show up, and if he does if he lives to ride Splash Mountain with us. About 2 minutes later he calls me. I ask him (as calmly as I can) where he is and why I needed to wait a minute, and he tells me this. “I was in the Monsters, Inc. Comedy Show.” YOU WERE WHERE?!?!?!?! You mean to tell me you went to another attraction, rather than coming to the front gate?!?! And even more importantly, you went to an attraction ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FLIPPIN’ PARK?!?!??!?!?

I was hot, to say the least.

He did show up soon, and we got our tickets from him & came through the gates. I told him that he better start leading the way to Splash Mt so we could get the remainder of our FP’s. He apologized for not being at the gate. I apologized for being mad, and told him that I really appreciated his gesture of going early to pull FP’s and understood that WE didn’t know he needed to scan ALL of the cards at the gate in order for them to work. I did tell him that I had tried REPEATEDLY to call him back, with a possible solution to our dilemma, but he didn’t seem to answer any of my calls. He asked me if I had eaten yet (knowing 50% of my grumpiness was probably due to not having breakfast yet) to which I snapped “No, when did I have a chance since I had to get all the kids out the door? I asked you to wait 15 minutes and dress the girls so we could’ve all made it over here together.” *deep breath here*

We made it over to Splash Mt for our FP’s, I grabbed a snack of Cheerios thanks to Coco, then went and rode BTMRR with Truitt while Fred, Aidan & the girls took a little walk around Frontierland. Standing in line for 20 minutes gave me time to calm down, and the rest of the day went much smoother.

Thank you for listening to this public service announcement. Please remember the lesson learned here… if you want to pull FP’s for everyone… each ticket must be scanned at that park’s entrance. Also, don’t leave your DW with all four kids to get dressed & fed & loaded on the bus when she says she will only be 15 more minutes. And thirdly, DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT go ride another attraction when you are suppose to meet your DW and kids at the front gate, especially one that is on the opposite side of the World (literally) from your original destination.

And now back to our regularly scheduled TR.

 

[MomsOf2boys]

Ohhhhh..... I'm glad you made up. You are probably a quicker forgiver than I am! I would have probably said something ugly about go ahead and enjoy the park alone, we're fine alone apparantly. LOL

 

[sockies31]

we sat at the same table on Thursday for dinner! that is funny!

I’m in a panic once I realize we are going to be late to Chef Mickey’s. While we are on the monorail "sitting" as we wait for another train to move along , I call the dining res. line hoping to be able to transfer over to the check-in podium at Chef Mickey's or something. The CM on the phone explained to me that they hold the ADR's for about 15 minutes, so I would probably be fine. Whew! Luckily, we made it within our “15 minute” window, and once we were seated I felt calm again.

The boys loved dinner, the girls not so much! Meredith would sit with her hands folded each time a character came around (see how's she's reacting with Minnie...),

and I’ve got a great shot of Corinne spitting out her food as Mickey came up behind her (I'll spare you of that shot!).

Anyway, Donald danced around Truitt during the “Celebration” as he blew out the candles on his cake. Donald is Truitt’s favorite, so I think he really liked that!

The boys with Mickey

And Donald...

Fred with Mickey (the picture of me with Mickey came out really dark... I think because the window's were behind me & threw off the flash because there was too much back-lighting).

Corinne doing pretty much what she did the entire trip--EAT!

Again, I can say that I'm disappointed with our pictures. We borrowed a friend's camera, because our digital is sooo old. We had hoped we would get some nice, clear shots (ours doesn't do well in low light and it's only 3 mega pixel to boot), but so many of them just seem grainy. I think we didn't play with it enough before we went, and used all the wrong settings.

Once dinner was over (at almost 7:00pm) we headed back over to MK for some more time. I was really glad we did, because this was the only night we actually “stayed late”. We were able to pick up a few more rides, see the fireworks, and even jumped on Dumbo before the night was over!

While the boys & I were riding Goofy's Barnstormer, the Space Shuttle took off... this is the picture Fred was able to get, and also the last one for the night because the camera battery went dead right after this one!

In summary of our first day, I think I can easily say my favorite attraction was PhilharMagic. I had very little knowledge of just what the “magic” was at Disney that everyone always talked about. I had been reading the UG, and knew what rides we wanted to do & such, so I knew this was a “must see” for us, but I was totally blown away by the 4D effects. The smell of the pie, the bursts of air blowing past me, the gems… it was all amazing! Meredith is still talking about how Donald got “stuck up there” (as she points to the ceiling). I think it was during this attraction that I really got the "magic" of Disney.

We headed back to the room around 10:00pm that night. Staying later made it a long day, but it was definitely a great First Day at Disney! It also made us sleep a little longer the next morning than I had hoped, and totally made me throw our park plans off. But hey, we were still learning at this point!

 

[marcielm]

Well, I was determined to not let him ruin my trip!!!!! Besides, I needed someone to sit with the little ones while I rode all the good stuff.

Ohhhhh..... I'm glad you made up. You are probably a quicker forgiver than I am! I would have probably said something ugly about go ahead and enjoy the park alone, we're fine alone apparantly. LOL

 

[marcielm]

It was a pretty good location, IMO! We easily could see everyone around us, and knew when the characters were coming our way. Plus, I liked that Truitt was the center of attention for his birthday (it was kinda' hard for people to not notice during the "celebration" time).

we sat at the same table on Thursday for dinner! that is funny!

 

[marcielm]

So, after the nightmare of a morning, the rest of our day went really well! Like I mentioned in my PSA, Truitt and I rode BTMRR while Fred, Aidan & the girls checked out the surroundings. We did the rider swap, so once we were back, Fred & Truitt went to ride it again. Aidan doesn’t like roller coasters, so that’s why he chose not to ride. I wish I could’ve gotten him on it, as it wasn’t too bad, but he refused. Maybe next time we go he will be ready for them.
I did take Aidan’s picture when I was trying to get a shot of the guys on it, which you can hardly see them in, so no point in sharing it here!!

Once we were off BTMRR, we decided to head back over to Tomorrowland & see what Space Mt looked like. Of course the line was incredibly long, and the FP’s were for much later in the day, after when we hoped to be long gone. We decided to ride the TTA, which was really neat (we got the see the inside of Space Mt), and all the kids enjoyed it.
Me & Aidan, with Coco:

Truitt & Meredith:

Aidan wanted to ride the Carousel of Progress again, but we explained to the kids that we were trying not to do any repeats. We did however pull FP’s for Buzz (so we could all ride this time), and went into the Monsters Inc. show (despite Fred having already seen it that morning).
Just before leaving TL, I stopped and got this picture of the Castle (from the TL side). It’s probably the best one we got the whole week.

Before getting over to Fantasyland, we stopped off at Cosmic Ray’s for lunch. Finally a chance for us to make the most of our quick service dining plan! Fred got the chicken & ribs, which was way more food than he needed, and I had the chicken sandwich. Aidan & Truitt each ordered something off the kid’s menu, and Meredith (who was now asleep in the stroller) had leftovers taken with us to snack on. From lunch we took off into FL, and hoped to get onto Winnie the Pooh or Peter Pan… but the wait time was way to long for both. We headed over to Small World, which I insisted on, and luckily it was only about a 30 minute wait. Meredith loved Small World! We got a couple of pictures, mostly of hula girls (guess who had the camera???)

A few of the cuties…

Hula dancing in the snow???

Good-bye!

From here we jumped in the line for the Haunted Mansion. Again Aidan is getting nervous (he really doesn’t like the “unknown”) and I reassured him it wasn’t going to be “scary bad” but “scary good” the way Disney does things. We had to get a picture of Fred’s tombstone. He’s lucky after the morning incident that this wasn’t really his tombstone!

I really enjoyed the HM, and so did Aidan! I rode with him, and pointed out all the neat stuff I had read about in the UG. Fred told me that Meredith rode with her head tucked behind his arm. Sweet girl, she’s endured quite a bit of “scary things” this week for us, hence the need for a few rides like Small World.

We headed back over to Splash Mt at this point, and with the rider swap option, Fred & the boys jumped in the FP line. The girls & I hung out, and went over to the big drop to see if we could spot when they would be coming down. This lasted about 5 minutes until someone had to go “potty”, so off we took for that. I went to the one down by the exit for Splash Mt. so I’d be sure and see the guys when they got off. About 5 minutes later they came heading out, and told me it was great (but the boys were disappointed they didn’t get “more wet”). They both wanted to ride again, so Fred took the girls & we headed back through the FP line (rider swap is great!). I loved the scenery for this attraction, and was thankful to not get wet at the end of the ride (I hate that feeling!).

Each time we rode something else at the park, I was more & more impressed with how it isn’t just a “ride” at Disney. There was a story for everything we did. Being a girl that grew up with a Six Flags season pass in hand, I was use to “rides”. I knew what days were best to go to the amusement park to avoid the crowds (Tues & Thurs, by the way) and just how to work the park to my advantage. Disney is in a class all its own. I love that age/size really isn’t an issue for a majority of the attractions, which makes it fun for everyone involved. The last time I went to Six Flags, I was 7 mos pregnant with Meredith. I wasn’t able to ride a SINGLE RIDE. Talk about a wasted ticket. There was nothing more miserable than walking around watching my entire family have all the fun. Disney isn’t like that… all the more reason I am now OFFICIALLY hooked.

Okay, back to the TR… sorry I got a bit side-tracked there!

After Splash Mt we noticed it was getting a bit late, and we had an ADR in Epcot that evening. Rather than go back to the hotel, we decided to go ahead and hop on the monorail and hit Epcot, giving ourselves plenty of time to get to our ADR on time. We took our time getting out of the park, seeing all the other things that were in Adventure land that we hadn’t even visited yet. It was at this point that Fred & I started discussing if we should just come back to MK on Friday morning to finish seeing all we could in the park, rather than visiting Epcot. We looked in a few shops on our way out, and decided we would ask the boys what they would prefer.

 

[marcielm]

So we hopped of the monorail and headed into Epcot, straight over from MK. We were plenty early, so it was nice to be able to take our time walking into the park. We walked through Mexico, getting this shot:

And then we were into Norway, go figure. The previous day we had come to Epcot, we had walked the LONG way around the world to get to the country we wanted. I guess maybe this time we wised up.

We had a few minutes, so I pulled Meredith aside to try and get her hair back up into ponytails. She was definitely doing her best impersonation of Anastasia, from what she had told us about having her hair brushed the previous night at the Cinderella dinner.

Fred also got a shot of the Norseman. I think he secretly wishes he was a Viking.

We let the CM’s know we were there, and waited to hear our name called. And we waited, and waited, and waited. Wait a minute, those people checked in after us. And we waited, and waited, and waited. Fred went and grabbed FP’s for Maelstrom while we waited (so we could do it after dinner, just in case there was any kind of line, we would be able to walk right up). FINALLY, they called our name. We went in, had our picture made with Belle… and the photographer managed to cut off Meredith when she used our camera the first time.

The second one turned out a little better….

We greeted with Aurora (who asked if Meredith would get down for the picture).

And afterwards Meredith informed us she didn’t want to get down anymore.

Then we saw Arial:

And Jasmine, who Meredith really didn’t know, and Aidan said was a little pudgy (not to her face of course!).

And once again we saw Cinderella. I mentioned yesterday that this Cindy wasn’t nearly as pretty as the first one we met, but Meredith was still thrilled to see her again. It seems the little girl at the next table was excited as well, as she waiting for Cindy to finish with us so she could see her (hey kid, sit down… your in my picture!).

Once again we had a great meal. I was stuffed at the end of the night, and very ready to go back to the hotel (remember, we hadn’t been back since the nightmarish morning!). We finished up, rode Maelstrom (which was very neat), and then started heading out of the park. It was dark, the kids were tired, and I was ready for bed!

 

[tinawv]

I am really enjoying your trip report, and what a beautiful family you have. I don't know how and the world you got 4 small children ready and to MK by yourself. You are a hero in my eyes.