From wish tripper to greeter - Ali's MAW trip report 4/19 - 4/25 FINALLY FINISHED!!!

[kellyw8863]

I finally decided to take the pictures off of my Blackberry tonight and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I actually got some decent pics! So, I thought I'd add some here before moving on.

This was taken shortly after we checked in. We quickly ate dinner and then headed across the street from our villa to Matthew's Boundless Playground.

On the ferry to our first day at MK. You can see the mark on Ali's nose from where our dog bit her the night before we left.

Safely back at GKTW after our first not-so-great day at MK. We were waiting for lunch at Katie's Kitchen.

More waiting for lunch.

One of many ice creams!

Crashing! Between MK and the pool, it's already been a long day but we still have 1900 Park Fare to look forward to!

Maya was excited to go!

Unfortunately, Ali was not in very good shape by this point, though she did perk up as the night went on.

Day three, chillaxin by the pool with a little bit of ice cream.

The girls loved the surfboard illusion.

Later that same night playing miniature golf!

The next morning waiting for breakfast at 'Ohana's.

 

[TTomlinson]

Oh the pictures are so cute! Seeing them made me even more excited for our trip! They came out really good considering they are from your phone. I have started taking more with my palm pre because I can upload them right then to Facebook or send to family, but I always worry that the quality will be horrible. Your girls are just too adorable...

 

[wishin' on a star]

I'm so glad this day is starting out better!!! I'm also interested in your comment about the food at GKTW! I have been nervous about this all along. I think we will love breakfast at GKTW, but I'm a little leary about dinner at the Gingerbread house. We have lots of ADR's booked, but I really don't know if we can afford them all, so we'll see how it actually goes. I like your idea of ordering a pizza to have the leftovers!

 

[TTomlinson]

Oh the pictures are so cute! Seeing them made me even more excited for our trip! They came out really good considering they are from your phone. I have started taking more with my palm pre because I can upload them right then to Facebook or send to family, but I always worry that the quality will be horrible. Your girls are just too adorable...

 

[wish_upon_a_star35]

The pictures that you took with your phone came out wonderfully!!! I haven't used the camera on my phone yet and I hope it takes good pictures!

We enjoyed breakfast at GKTW but we never once ate dinner or lunch at the gingerbread house. We did eat Katies kitchen and we ordered the pizza a couple times too!

I think they show the menu for the day or week on the tv. If I remember correctly there is a special tv station? And we never really saw anything that we wanted on the dinner menus. Plus we ate out at nearby restaurants a few times.

 

[cantwaittoseemickey]

Sheesh my stinking tears today. They are just out in full force. I just love your update. Your girls are so sweet. I love the Pluto pic with your mom! Stitch taking the girls for the parade awwww!!

Poor sweet Ali. I see her all red and yellow. Bless her heart! Ty does the same thing

Im glad you all had a great day at GKTW.

 

[Thumper321]

Subbing! So glad I found this!

 

[kellyw8863]

Oh the pictures are so cute! Seeing them made me even more excited for our trip! They came out really good considering they are from your phone. I have started taking more with my palm pre because I can upload them right then to Facebook or send to family, but I always worry that the quality will be horrible. Your girls are just too adorable...

That's exactly why I used my phone, though I never expected that they would come out okay. I find that it's a pain to upload pics to FB from the computer, but with my BB, it's one touch. Thanks for the compliments on the girls!

I'm so glad this day is starting out better!!! I'm also interested in your comment about the food at GKTW! I have been nervous about this all along. I think we will love breakfast at GKTW, but I'm a little leary about dinner at the Gingerbread house. We have lots of ADR's booked, but I really don't know if we can afford them all, so we'll see how it actually goes. I like your idea of ordering a pizza to have the leftovers!

We only ate at the Gingerbread House two nights, and both nights, it was a little less than okay. I feel guilty even saying that because GKTW is such a wonderful place, but I wish I had known going into it so I could plan better. They do have a kids buffet, which was better than the regular one IMO. The kids usually ate either spaghetti or chicken nuggets. For burger night, I couldn't even finish my burger and I'll usually eat anything. Breakfasts there were very good. Katie's Kitchen was good, though there's not tons of variety there. If we were out at the parks during the day but back before 4pm when they stop serving sandwiches, we would order the sandwiches for dinner. The girls loved the mac and cheese and the chicken breast sandwiches, but that's about all they'd eat from there. The other nice thing about Katie's Kitchen is that we could eat it poolside, which we did on many occasions. It did become our ritual to order two pizzas at night while we were out on the patio having a drink. That way, there was always something in the fridge that the kids would eat (and the adults would pick at).

The pictures that you took with your phone came out wonderfully!!! I haven't used the camera on my phone yet and I hope it takes good pictures!

We enjoyed breakfast at GKTW but we never once ate dinner or lunch at the gingerbread house. We did eat Katies kitchen and we ordered the pizza a couple times too!

I think they show the menu for the day or week on the tv. If I remember correctly there is a special tv station? And we never really saw anything that we wanted on the dinner menus. Plus we ate out at nearby restaurants a few times.

They do still show it on the TV and they display it at the House of Hearts. We found it to be pretty limited in its offerings, but it must be hard to plan for numbers when you have so many people in and out over the course of the days. By the last night, we contemplated going to the Longhorn for dinner, but ultimately opted for KK by the pool.

Sheesh my stinking tears today. They are just out in full force. I just love your update. Your girls are so sweet. I love the Pluto pic with your mom! Stitch taking the girls for the parade awwww!!

Poor sweet Ali. I see her all red and yellow. Bless her heart! Ty does the same thing

Im glad you all had a great day at GKTW.

You are too funny. They were sooooooo good to us at the breakfast. I would highly recommend it!

Subbing! So glad I found this!

Hey there! I'm glad you found us! How is Aidan feeling? We, too, are dealing with the post-trip sickies, though we've managed to avoid the hospital. It's hard coming back, isn't it?

 

[yinyanggirls]

Love the Ohana breakfast! What fun to lead the parade!

As far as food goes, G. House wasn't my fave either at dinnertime. I did like Katie's much better although the selection was limited. We always found enough to be satisfied with a meal though. And the pizza delivery is nice that it goes so much later.

 

[kellyw8863]

Love the Ohana breakfast! What fun to lead the parade!

As far as food goes, G. House wasn't my fave either at dinnertime. I did like Katie's much better although the selection was limited. We always found enough to be satisfied with a meal though. And the pizza delivery is nice that it goes so much later.

It was soooooo good there! We didn't make our dinner reservations for 'Ohana's, which I'm a little bummed about, but what can you do. I agree with you - there was always plenty to eat and I never felt hungry.

 

[kellyw8863]

Granted we only made it to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, AK was by far our favorite park. Not only was it beautiful, it had this sense of calm that MK doesn't have and we were really treated very, very well there. It started right away with parking when we were instructed to "follow the blue line," which took us to the handicapped parking lot. We don't have a placard, but this was HUGE for us. It meant that we could load all of Ali's stuff into the basket of her stroller because we wouldn't have to fold it up to ride the tram. It meant that we could go straight from our car to the park so that we were inside and busy before Ali had the chance to melt down. And, it meant that we could stay in the park all day since we knew when it was time to leave, all we had to do was walk to our car - no monorail, no tram, no screaming kid for 20 minutes. In hindsight, I probably could have asked at MK, but it is what it is.

As soon as we walked through the gates, Ali saw this and was thrilled.

We do have a couple of FP pictures of us all together with the tree as the backdrop, but I don't have those yet. As we got a little further in, we stopped to listen to the Village Beatniks for a bit.

I really enjoyed them and could have stayed longer, but they were really loud which didn't make Ali happy. But, it really just added to the festive appeal of the park.

I had done a little research the night before that suggested starting out in Dinoland, so that's where we headed first. The girls LOVED the playground there and could have stayed there for much longer than we did.

We rode the flying dinosaurs (I don't remember what they're called), but that was it for rides.

The girls were too short for the other ride (Triceratop Spin? Twirl?) and none of us were interested in Dinosaur. It was really hot in this part of the park, but we had a hard time finding a drink vendor that was open. There were tons of water fountains, though.

The girls enjoyed playing around with the antique car cut-outs.

After Dinoland, we cut over to Asia because Garth and I wanted to ride Expedition Everest and we all wanted to go on the Kidani River Rapids. I had read in a number of places that AK is the hottest of all the parks (or at least it feels that way), but we didn't find this to be the case. There seemed to be lots of shade and trees and in general, was just a pleasant place to be.

 

[wishin' on a star]

I have only been to AK once with just DH, and it was 11 years ago. However, it was definitely our favorite park for all of the reasons you mention! Sounds like a great day!!

 

[Momofwishkid]

Yay! Im so glad AK day is turning out so good and the Ohana breakfast looked great. That was so sweet that Stitch led the girls in the parade.

 

[luckylady]

Whew all caught up. Looks like a grand time so far. Great pictures.

 

[maroo]

I love the AK! It is actually my favorite park!



Awesome update!

 

[Wee Annie]

Kelly,

as you know, the AK was one of our best experiences too. But we didn't spend that long in Dinoland, strangely enough. We did the Triceratop spin once, but didn't make it to the play area, which I now regret. Oh well, you can't do it all, right? Elke LOVED the safari, and also the nature walks. Guess I should be taking her to the zoo more often, huh?

Love the pics of the girls -- can't wait to read more!

 

[kayrosek]

Kelly we loved AK too. I'm so glad Ali had more fun at the park that was part of her actual wish.

 

[blessedmom4]

You all have such beautiful smiles, it is wonderful to see the family having such a great time!

Blessings,
Judy

 

[D1sneymum]

Oh you are truly a blessed mom with two darling girls! All your pics show what a wonderful time you all had! Reading about your girls brought tears to my eyes. I have a daughter too and she is my world! You might have had a bad run in at the air port with a rude employee but all in all it sounds like it smoothed out and you all had a blast! My daughter loves Animal Kingdom too! She's an animal lover!

 

[kellyw8863]

I have only been to AK once with just DH, and it was 11 years ago. However, it was definitely our favorite park for all of the reasons you mention! Sounds like a great day!!

It really was a great day. By the end, we were telling every CM we met how wondeful they all were. They probably thought we were three sheets to the wind!

Yay! Im so glad AK day is turning out so good and the Ohana breakfast looked great. That was so sweet that Stitch led the girls in the parade.

Whew all caught up. Looks like a grand time so far. Great pictures.

I love the AK! It is actually my favorite park!



Awesome update!

Thanks, ladies!

Kelly,

as you know, the AK was one of our best experiences too. But we didn't spend that long in Dinoland, strangely enough. We did the Triceratop spin once, but didn't make it to the play area, which I now regret. Oh well, you can't do it all, right? Elke LOVED the safari, and also the nature walks. Guess I should be taking her to the zoo more often, huh?

Love the pics of the girls -- can't wait to read more!

We actually didn't spend that much time in Dinoland, either. The girls did the playground for about a 1/2 hour, and then we moved on through. It was hot there and not as much shade as other areas of the park. The girls loved the safari and the walks, as well, but were completely nonplussed by the parade (we got stuck in it on the way out). I just don't think they dig crowds or chaos, even if it is fun chaos.

Kelly we loved AK too. I'm so glad Ali had more fun at the park that was part of her actual wish.

You all have such beautiful smiles, it is wonderful to see the family having such a great time!

Blessings,
Judy

Thank you!!!!

Oh you are truly a blessed mom with two darling girls! All your pics show what a wonderful time you all had! Reading about your girls brought tears to my eyes. I have a daughter too and she is my world! You might have had a bad run in at the air port with a rude employee but all in all it sounds like it smoothed out and you all had a blast! My daughter loves Animal Kingdom too! She's an animal lover!