A Nov trip with 4 & 2 yr olds! New 4/18: Studios/Epcot

[scottny]

the croc thing would have had me furious.

 

[stagemomx3]

Crocs-

No Crocs-

New Shoes!

The new shoes are cute!

 

[jham]

Great trip report so far! Your kids are so cute! My kids also try to destroy the towel art before I can get a picture. That's awful about the crocs! On our trip DS5 lost ONE croc and no one ever turned it in. I do love your DDs new shoes though.

 

[k_reile]

great report. I am interested to see how your trip went. Next time that I want to go to WDW DH and I will have a 2 yr old and my newphew will be 4...but at least there would be two sets of parents and a set of grandparents to help too.

Clever little daughter you have there. Seems that these kids are getting soo smart these days at such a young age...I barely remember that time period let alone to know to take of my shoes. But I guess her punishment was that she did not get the crocs she wanted right? hahah... yeah can't wait for parenthood...hahaha my niece when she was 3 going on 4 was shopping with my SIL and she told my SIL that she wanted two of the same outfits because somedays she felt like wearing pink and somedays she felt like wearing purple. My SIL was like ...isn't she supposed to do that as a teenager?

 

[Cherlynn25]

Great report so far, love the pictures, you have such cuties! I sure hope you end up finding her crocs! we lost one of ds the other day when we were at kohls. luckily we did find it.

 

[scrapnmom]

great update and pics.

how nice how they accomodated u at the restaurant.

Disney is very well known among the food allergy "community" about being very accommodating.

great report. I am interested to see how your trip went. Next time that I want to go to WDW DH and I will have a 2 yr old and my newphew will be 4...but at least there would be two sets of parents and a set of grandparents to help too.

Clever little daughter you have there. Seems that these kids are getting soo smart these days at such a young age...I barely remember that time period let alone to know to take of my shoes. But I guess her punishment was that she did not get the crocs she wanted right? hahah... yeah can't wait for parenthood...hahaha my niece when she was 3 going on 4 was shopping with my SIL and she told my SIL that she wanted two of the same outfits because somedays she felt like wearing pink and somedays she felt like wearing purple. My SIL was like ...isn't she supposed to do that as a teenager?

The funny thing is that they didn't even have the Mickey crocs in her size! My DD is very picky about what she wears, she is currently in a dress-only phase.

Great report so far, love the pictures, you have such cuties! I sure hope you end up finding her crocs! we lost one of ds the other day when we were at kohls. luckily we did find it.

Thanks!

Crocs-
The new shoes are cute!

Every time someone would tell me that, I had to tell them the story of why she had the shoes!

 

[scrapnmom]

Tuesday: KSC
The drive to Kennedy Space Center was quite nice, we had beautiful weather. This was the real reason DH agreed to this trip, we had last gone in 2002. DH had very high expectations for this trip. He and DS watch NASA launch videos all the time (you can download them from some website) on the computer and DS has learned all about the shuttles. DH was sure that DS would be over the moon at this place.

When we got there, I caught DH at the ticket window as he was about to buy the “NASA Up Close” tour which would have added another $60 on top of the $110 admission for the three of us. I know DH would have loved it I don’t think the cost was justified. Besides, we have to save something for next time, right?

We first went over to the Rocket Garden where they have many different kinds of rockets outside. DH was so excited to show it to DS….and then DS saw the playground. They have a huge, covered playground right next to the Rocket Garden. The kids went nuts. I only got these 2 photos because I was trying to keep up with DD. There were places where she would get stuck and I was worried about her falling. These slides were really long and fast.

I told DH to go ahead and walk through the garden and I would stay with the kids. After a good hour, we finally convinced the kids to stop playing and go have lunch. We ate at the cafeteria. DH had a Cuban sandwich and they made it right in front of him, he said it was very good. After eating, the kids wanted to go back to the playground but we said it was time for the bus tour. DS was NOT happy about this and started having a tantrum. We promised him that we would go back to the playground after we got back.

The first stop is a viewing platform where you can see the launch pad. The shuttle was on the launch pad, which was so cool to see, although it did have the scaffolding around it to prepare for the launch. This was taken with the maximum zoom on my camera:

Here we're on the platform:

This is an engine that was actually used in the Challenger. It obviously wasn't used in the last mission:

Then we went to the Apollo/Saturn V center. DS favorite part of this was running full speed the entire length of the building while screaming, sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

At the end of the building there was an older man sitting by a sign “talk to a NASA engineer” or something like that. I pointed him out to DH and this man was an engineer who worked on the Apollo missions. He and DH had a nice engineer-engineer chat. You can see him in the bottom right of this photo:

 

[scrapnmom]

There was one more stop on the bus tour to the International Space Station Center. But, you could also take a bus back to the Visitor’s Center. I convinced DH that we needed to go back. The kids weren’t getting anything out of this and I was tired of chasing them! We walked to the Astronaut’s Memorial to see the names of the Columbia shuttle crew. There’s a walkway over some water and we saw an alligator:

We climbed into the shuttle replica that was nearby,

then picked up ice cream cones and headed back to the playground. DS, who is not super outgoing, made a fast friend, a little boy his same age. He was there with his au pair, I gathered that they lived in the area and had annual passes to come to play. They were instant friends, it was the sweetest thing to see. DS came up with a game and they played on that playground for what felt like hours and hours. When it was time to go, they both said “see you next time!” and that made me so sad because of course we’d never see him again!

DS believes he met a real astronaut now:

We let the kids pick one toy out of the gift shop. DH had gotten DS a set of 8 rockets at the Mission:Space gift shop for $8. We saw the exact same set at KSC only it was $15!!


On the drive back to Orlando at about 5, they both fell asleep so we knew it would be a late night. We stopped at DTD for dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express. DH, DD, and I got pizza (which was so delicious! DH and I were supposed to share but I had to share with DD since DH had to have the whole thing to himself) and DH had a grilled cheese which they served with a huge mound of mashed potatoes. I thought that was a really strange food combination. We walked around for awhile and got treats from the candy shop before heading back to the hotel, it was close to 9 PM. We had ADRs at O’hana at 8AM the next morning, I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to get up early enough.

 

[marianas00]

It looks like you had a great time at the space center. I am so jealous! I will be planning to take my family there on one of our trips. Your children have the cutest smiles. Great report. Thank you for sharing your adventures.

 

[scottny]

great update and pics.

I have never been there so thank you for the photos.

 

[Donald is #1]

... DS was still really upset.

Everyone calmed down for the most part and it was almost time for Spectromagic. We found spots in Frontierland and enjoyed the parade. Somehow DS ended up with a light-up Mickey sword thing.

I bet that the light-up Mickey sword was the best medicine for DS's tantrum.

 

[herewegodisney]

I'm enjoying reading your trip report. My 2 year old dd has an egg allergy and I'd love to know what you favorite places to eat were.

 

[MousekaMaddi]

great job, more please

 

[marianas00]

I second that. More please

 

[scrapnmom]

I'm enjoying reading your trip report. My 2 year old dd has an egg allergy and I'd love to know what you favorite places to eat were.

I'm sorry to hear you have a food allergy in your family, too. I had emailed food services before our trip and had gotten a list of some safe and not safe items, although they did warn me that things change and I should check when I got there, too (I don't have the email anymore, sorry). They do recommend that you do TS since they are equipped to make accommodations, but that's not really realistic. If my DD had a life-threatening allergy I would have gotten the ingredient list at everywhere we ate, otherwise I just chose what I assumed to be safe. The hamburger and hot dog buns were safe and pizza was safe. We ate breakfast in our room every day except when we went to Chef Mickey's since that's the most *dangerous* meal.

All of the kids' mac and cheese at WDW has egg. All of the chicken strips in the parks have egg, and I think everything breaded had egg. At the WL, they had chicken nuggets that were safe but I didn't see those anywhere else. That's something to keep in mind, too, that there are inconsistencies. At Crystal Palace, all the breads were safe. But, at the Garden Grill and Hollywood and Vine, NONE of the breads were safe. You can always ask how they can help you.

Any TS restaurant will accommodate allergies. We loved all the character meals. DD is also kind of picky. She usually ate only grapes and fries when we ate at CS.

Otherwise, in AK DD had pizza at Pizzafari. At MK, we got "pinwheels" at Pinnochio's Village Haus (turkey and cheese rolled in a tortilla, no mayo), and at Cosmic Ray's I got the rotisserie chicken with mashed potatoes and she shared with me. She had a hamburger at Pecos Bill's. At Epcot, she had the quesadilla at the CS at Mexico. Sunshine Seasons in the Land has a lot of things for everyone to choose from.

The Mickey ice cream sandwiches were safe (didn't read the ingredients on the ice cream bar) and the Itazkadoozie bars were safe.

Before we went, I spent a lot of time reading through the menus on allears.net and making a loose plan of where we were going to eat. I had a mental list of places where there was something she could eat.

That's all I can think of now, I hope this helps!

 

[scrapnmom]

It looks like you had a great time at the space center. I am so jealous! I will be planning to take my family there on one of our trips. Your children have the cutest smiles. Great report. Thank you for sharing your adventures.

great update and pics.

I have never been there so thank you for the photos.

You should definitely see it sometime. We last went in 2002 (pretty much the same) and I went 3 times with my family when I was younger.

I bet that the light-up Mickey sword was the best medicine for DS's tantrum.

great job, more please

I second that. More please

Thanks!!

 

[scrapnmom]

DH was up earlier than me that morning, so he took DD to the gift shop to buy batteries for the Mickey sword. When they came back, DD had this:

DH’s response? “She said she wanted it.” A true Daddy’s girl! (notice she was still in her pjs)

We realized that it was easier to let the kids watch tv while we got ready ourselves and we could quickly sunscreen them without protest. We don’t have cable at home so these were brand new shows. They were enthralled with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. But, when it was time to go, they didn’t want to leave! We had ADRs at O'Hana's at 8:00 AM, which was the latest they had, but we had such a late night there was no way we could get going so early, so we had to skip it.

We took the boat to MK and got there a little before 10 which was pretty good for us. We had decided to bring our own umbrella stroller this time. DD didn’t like the Disney ones and we spent a lot of time carrying her but she had no problem riding in ours.

We went straight to Fantasyland. We got in line for Peter Pan, it was about a 5 minute wait. At the very last second, just as we were about to get in the boat, DS said he didn’t want to go. So, I took him out and we sat on a bench. I was kind of upset but I didn’t yell at him or anything. This is the first ride we went on when he was 2 and he loved it so I couldn’t understand why he’d be saying it’s too scary now. As soon as DH and DD got off, we went to Dumbo. I was so excited for us to go on it! DH had never been on it, and I had only gone once on my college spring break trip. We only had a 5 minute wait, which was great!

I think this is so funny, you can barely see DD’s head!

I was with DS and he had the best time working the lever.

We did the Carousel next. On the first go around, I had DH stand and hold onto DD and I rode on a horse (pretty fun!). The kids wanted to do it again, so we got right back on and it was my turn to hold DD. Once it started I thought she seemed safe enough so I climbed on the horse next to her and kept my hand on the back of her horse. She was fine, and I was glad to ride again.

I only remember riding this once as a child, the CM had to cut the line off right in front of me because it was full and I started to cry. So, when everyone got off she let me go by myself and pick out my horse before she let anyone else on. I remember that so clearly! I have so many special memories of our family trips growing up and that is why I want to bring my own kids.

Next, we headed to Toontown to see some Princesses.

 

[wdwgirl03]

Hi from a fellow Wisconsinite!

Great trip report! The Kennedy Space Center looks really cool...I would love to visit there some day! Looking forward to more.

 

[scottny]

great update and pics.

I have never done Dumbo.

 

[scrapnmom]

Hi from a fellow Wisconsinite!

Great trip report! The Kennedy Space Center looks really cool...I would love to visit there some day! Looking forward to more.

great update and pics.

I have never done Dumbo.

Usually the line is prohibitively long. I would feel weird going if I didn't have kids. My friend had to drag me go on it on our college trip.