Finally here it is, our DHS day. At this rate it is going to take me a year to write this all out!!
So I left off with us on the bus heading over to DHS.
We arrived and saw their Tree first, beautiful!
I was amused at how much we had forgotten about how to get in the parks Checked bags, slide card, finger print, turnstile... my poor son had no idea how to do all this and even though it was lunchtime, it was busy and people were getting annoyed because he couldn't figure out the timing between swiping the card and giving the finger print. But he got it figured out
Since it was lunch time, we decided to do that first. So I grabbed the daily schedule so that I could confirm times for the shows that we wanted to see and we headed here for lunch,
I spent a fair amount of time before we left looking at menus and figuring out which restaurants I would be able to eat at. I had phoned the allergy line and they told me that with only 2 allergies I did not have to call each place individually and that they would be able to find food for me with out advance notice. I was a bit leary about this but at the same time relieved because it opened up a bit more freedom in meal planning since I would not have to stick so close to a scheduled time of arrival at every restaurant.
So we ordered food and as soon as I mentioned allergy they said I would have to talk with the chef. So I waited, and waited, and waited. This became a very painful part of the process at EVERY meal. We learned after a bit to order food for DH and kids and THEN I would order my food, most of the time I would take almost 15 min before I talked with a chef and got my food.
I talked with the chef, expecting to have options. NOPE. just one, they could do a salad and leave off the chicken and cheese. I was ok with this since it did have some beans in the salad as well. On the plus side they had a dessert for me. Again, this ended up being an issue at a lot of CS places... I thought they HAD to have allergy free items everywhere.... apparetnly not.
Kids waiting...
Bethany's special cupcake. Looked really yummy but was very very sweet. She only ate a few bite of it but at least with the DP we did not have to pay for this.
Once lunch was done we went to do some rides and shows. The last time we were at WDW we did not manage to do a number of things so they were on my must do list.
First we went on the back lot tour. Everyone enjoyed this.
Kids got quite a kick out of this part
Then we headed over to Great Movie Ride, another one that we didn't do last time.
We walked down Streets of America. I was really looking forward to coming back later at night to see all the lights. Pretty sure it was going to be impressive.
A big goal for this trip was not to rush around like crazy all day long. We spent a lot more time wandering the stores.
B found this hat and decided it was the hat she wanted to buy (she buys a hat at almost every vacation we go on)
I convinced her not to buy it in the afternoon so that she didn't have to tote it all day long. We could have had it sent to the room but for some reason I don't think we even thought of this... we weren't used to the Key to the WOrld thing yet.
Remember how I said DH and I did not get a lot of sleep the past 2 nights and he was not feeling well? Well, here was where some of the not so fun stuff happened.
I understand much better now what happened but at the time, I am sorry to say, I just got mad.
All day my DH and been pretty quiet. He is not a huge talker but he is usually a little goofy, talks a lot to me or at least lets me bounce ideas off of him, walks with me etc. etc By the afternoon of this first day in the park it was like he was not really on holidays with us. The kids and I would be walking and all of sudden one would say "Where's Dad?" we would turn around and not see him. We would wait, and eventually he would catch up. I would ask where he was and he would just shrug. Ask him if he was ok, he would shrug. Ask him if he wanted to do ..... (fill in the blank) and he would shrug.... well you get the idea. I got very frustrated by this because the whole point was to do this as a family and this wan't MY trip so I wanted input from everyone. I was pretty mad that every decision was being left up to me and at one point he even said to me "I'm just following you, I don't care what we do, this is your trip, you wanted to do this".
So I just walked off. Before I said something I would really regret, I walked away and kind of ignored him for a few hours. He trailed behind us, not talking though he did continue to take some photos.
Decided to go to One Man's dream, something else we did not see last time. The kids kind of liked it but got bored in a few minutes. We didn't do the show, just looked at the pictures.
Like this one
We had an ADR at 4:25 so we started walking over in that direction.
Kids thought this was funny...
We headed here for dinner
we had never eaten here before but it sounded like fun. I had debated between this and Mama Melrose, but we are not really into that kind of dining and looking at the menu I thought it would be tough to find something for me to eat.
While we were waiting to be called, huge clouds rolled in and all of a sudden it started raining... and not just lightly but HUGE rain, thunder and all that fun stuff.
Thankfully we got called in soon after the rain started.
We really liked this restaurant. The kids loved the car and the movies.
Even DH perked up for a bit and started talking again. Side note: it's amazing how much one persons mood can affect everyone!! And how once he relaxed and starting acting more normal, everyone relaxed.
Food was ok. I knew from others that the food is not fabulous here but that you come for the atmosphere more than anything, and that part was great. My food was sub par. I had made an ADR here, had talked to the allergy line, and in the ADR had it noted my allergy and still they had NO idea that I was there, that I had an allergy and seemed surprised that I needed something different. Chef was nice but in the end all he could offer me was noodles with maranara sauce and a few veggies. It was bland and not at all filling. they did not even have a dessert for me so we ended up paying OOP for DH and myself and did the
DDP for the kids since they wanted shakes and desserts. They enjoyed those treats!
We were pleasently surprised that by the time we left the restaurant the rain had basically stopped. It was still dripping occasionally but not down pouring.
We headed over the Muppet 3D, Bethany's favorite movie. She is really into the muppets right now.
We walked down the Streets of America to see the lights since it was doark now. I don't think DH or the kids really enjoyed this. It was OK for them but seemed to not have the WOW factor. It was also raining on and off so that may have made it more difficult to enjoy. I liked it and could have stayed there a long time watching the lights and listening to the music but no one wanted to stay so we headed out. Not sure why, but I have no photos of this.
Then we headed over to Indiana Jones (another of the missed shows from last time)
Got this photo on our way over there. I did not have the camera much of the week and though my hubby was great at taking a TON of photos, he did not always take the time to get 'good' photos.
Saw IJ, which we loved and had a great time with, then headed over to Rock n Roller coaster. No one wanted to do TOT (thank goodness!) and the wait time was only 15 min for RNR so we went and rode that.
We only rode it one time. We all felt a bit naseaus after this ride. LOL I think the plane ride and lack of sleep was getting to all of us. I realized that we missed Fantasmic, which was unfortunate but the kids really didn't care. We had seen this the last time though I would have liked to have seen it again.
We spent some time shopping at RNR and DH bought a Mickey Shirt. and John bought a guitar picture holder. At this point B decided she would like to buy her hat (we were getting ready to head out soon) so we started looking for it. Wouldn't you know, we couldn't find it anywhere! The only place I remembered seeing it was by Muppets. Of course, being our first day we had no idea if we would see this hat anywhere else. It was pretty late by now because we had EMH till midnight. I think it was around 10:30. We were all exhausted and I knew we had an early ADR for breakfast but B was really counting on getting the hat.
Again, hubby was very grumpy and doing the not talking thing so it was hard to try to figure out what to do. Eventually I decided that we should find the hat 'just incase' so we trudged around most of the park looking for the hat. Found it one place, but it was ripped, kept searching. It took almost 30 minutes to find the silly hat (and wouldn't you know it was in EVERY park!!)
She got the hat, was very happy.
We finally headed out
Poor Tired B
Saw the tree again at night all lit up
And got this cool shot of the moon
Up next.. REALLY EARLY Adr.... Can I get them up, will we make it and did we get ANY sleep??
Hubby came home tonight and asked me "did you have a busy day?" Here I thought he was being sweet and caring but then he says " I noticed the house is not as clean as normal and you said you were going to start laundry and haven't yet and we don't have any milk left in the fridge!" Didn't know if I should laugh or yell at him for that! 
. I'm a little late but I think you are still on day one of your report. Going to read your last update.
AKL was definitely a favorite for us. We got spoiled this trip.... more updates coming 
Some days I just don't understand my hubby. Oh well, He surprised me and took me out on a date last night, so I guess that made up for it.... actually he cleaned up the kitchen this morning THAT made up for the wise crack! 
and welcome. 
So Dh and I talked about this ahead of time and decided that B and I would sleep in the same bed and Dh and John would sleep in the same bed. (this is an important tidbit of info for later)
To a fellow cold Manitoban! Lucky you, going to WDW during the cold season. LOL I'll try to get some more photos uploaded before you leave. We really loved the resort and if you have small children I think that the size of the resort is really nice. Oh and if you meet a CM at the pool talking about the crazy Canadians who shovel off their roof in the winter so it doesn't cave in.... That was us!! 
