Trip Report I Horsey again

We’ve been home from Walt Disney World for a little over two weeks now and the holidays have passed. It’s time for what has become my post-trip tradition of writing our trip report.

We always take our best photos at Hollywood Studio.


If you read our previous reports, you know that we have previously visited WDW in November. Given the amount of crowds last year, we decided to change to a December trip. We made sure to steer clear of the Holiday crowds however. I mean we are not crazy, even though we do enjoy a good country bear jamboree.


Our trip began on December 8th. My super-organized wife Sara (I say that in a good way – mostly) had worked the previous week or so packing up her stuff as well as the kids’ things. Here is a photo of our cat Oliver asking us if he can on December 7th.

Ollie gets his name because he came from a “free kittens” box at a yard sale in our development. He has a sister we named Jasmine who is harder to get to stay still for a photo. Much to Sara’s dismay, I have continuously put my foot down and forbidden our cats from coming on vacation with us. Taking care of two children tends to be hard enough.


On December 8th, I stayed home with an off-day from work while Sara and Makayla went to daycare (Sara is a teacher there) and Luke went to Kindergarten. Yes, Luke is our big Kindergartner this year. I took December 8th to pack my things, which hadn’t been started yet. Sara and I are very opposite in this way. Sara and Makayla came home around 1:30, and Sara and I loaded the car while Makayla napped. Around 3:45 Luke returned from school, and after a quick potty break for him we were on our way.


After a 40 minute wait to eat a Chipotle in Leesburg, VA, and a bunch of Paw Patrol episodes on our DVD player later (both kids’ current favorite show) we arrived at the Hampton Inn in Emporia, VA, our home for the first night.


We quickly settled in for the night and prepared for bed. Luke always enjoys spending nights away, he seems them as adventures. So it took a little bit of time to get him wound down, but we ended up sleeping well. The next morning, both kids insisted on “helping me load the car again.

After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we were on our way. Here is Makayla enjoying her yogurt.

Friday, December 9th was an all-day drive affair. It included a Pizza Hut lunch in South Carolina, and a stop at the Florida Welcome Center 10 minutes after it had closed – no free orange juice for us. Makayla was terribly afraid of this dolphin statue. She would not go near it. She kept saying “Dolphin bite me.” As far as we know, she’s never had a negative run-in with a dolphin before, so I’m not really sure where this came from, but she would not go near the thing. At least Luke was willing to take his photo here.

Once we were back in the car, we hit a little traffic around Jacksonville, then made our way to I-4. As we turned onto I-4, the navigation on Sara’s phone told us we were about an hour and 15 minutes away. About 15 minutes later, a recheck told us we were about an hour and 45 minutes away. It usually seems like Disney keeps getting further away from us due to our excitement, but this time we found out there was a massive accident on I-4 closing the left three lanes.


We ended up having a major delay through Orlando, and instead of arriving around 8, we ended up not getting to our hotel until almost 9:30. We had hoped to stay at the Hampton Inn near Disney (Hampton is a long-time favorite of our family), but found out they were booked for the night. So we ended up next door at the Quality Inn and Suites, which thankfully had an opening (though for a little bit more money). Both kids helped by pulling their suitcases this time.

Luke loved the fact that we had two rooms – it is a suite after all.

After a quick game of hide and seek – yes Luke deemed the room was big enough we had to play hide and seek, we got the kids to bed. We were ready to begin our Disney adventure the next day.

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

I am enjoying your trip report! It is reminding me of the time when all of my kids were little. We have made Disney our family's traditional vacation place too since my oldest turned 1 in 2002. Have been back every year. My kids cannot imagine going anywhere else for a vacation although they will never say no to DCL or Disney's Hilton Head Resort.

 

[Doc Disney]

As we were planning our reservations in advance of this trip, we talked about whether we wanted to switch it up, since Epcot is full of great restaurants. But we came back to the fact that we enjoy San Angel Inn so much that we didn't want to give it up. So here we were yet again heading to Mexico for our first meal.

We do this too There are always certain restaurants we go back to again and again every trip until my Dad encourages us to try something new Your kids are so cute!!! Last time we ate at San Angel Inn we had a seat on the water too and I barely got any waves back either

 

[Tuvalu]

Luke was busy checking out the numbers on each boat. He rides bus 23 to school, so 23 has become his favorite number. There was a small fiesta at our table when we saw boat 23 coming.

Love this!

Happy to read about your love of San Angel Inn. It's one of our faves too.

 

[Lyear]

We do this too There are always certain restaurants we go back to again and again every trip until my Dad encourages us to try something new Your kids are so cute!!! Last time we ate at San Angel Inn we had a seat on the water too and I barely got any waves back either

Sara and I always say we need to go for at least 3 weeks sometime so we can do all our favorites plus try all the new things we want to try too. Now, about finding a way to pay for this...

Love this!

Happy to read about your love of San Angel Inn. It's one of our faves too.

Viva San Angel Inn, thanks for following along.

I am enjoying your trip report! It is reminding me of the time when all of my kids were little. We have made Disney our family's traditional vacation place too since my oldest turned 1 in 2002. Have been back every year. My kids cannot imagine going anywhere else for a vacation although they will never say no to DCL or Disney's Hilton Head Resort.

That's great. That's our goal, so far so good. Never tried DCL or Hilton Head. DCL is on my wife's list, but I'm just not sure I'm a cruise person.

Luke is hilarious! That kid cracks me up!! (Love how he thought your behavior was uncouth!)

Oh, by the way, you were so lucky to get that prime viewing table. I've always wanted to have dinner there, watching the people go by in the boat. I think the Mexico pavilion has some of the nicest atmosphere.

Luke can be a complete nut. He has the ability to frustrate me and crack me up at the same time. That table was PRIME! I'm sure Luke will be upset when we get a table away from the water next year (assuming we eat there again.)

 

[21stamps]

We decided to walk back to future world and to the Mission Space playground. This was on our must-do list going into our trip. If you happened to read our last report, you may remember that this playground was the source of some major drama for our family last year. We went to the playground but didn't plan out enough time, and the result was a major Luke temper tantrum as we tried to pull him out of the playground, after what admittedly was a very short time. Thankfully this year we had plenty of time to play.

On the way, we walked past the cool station misters outside of Test Track, and Luke really wanted to go in.

The sodas in the car don't come out

All the water in this area comes out as a mist, but Luke got really soaked. He loved it.

Then it was on to the playground.
Here's a happy face

Makayla was a little upset that she couldn't go into the high tubes, but she found ways to occupy her time.

And the cute sibling shot

The playground inside Mission Space actually goes 3 levels high, and the 3rd level is inside a rocket ship which you can't see into from the ground. I haven't seen the inside of the rocket ship myself (it was tempting to get in and climb around, but I decided I would act like an adult). The rocket must be exciting because a lot of kids would spend a lot of time in there. In the time we were there, we had two mom's get fairly panicked when they couldn't find their sons, only to have them be inside the rocket ship.

We ended up spending about 45 minutes at that playground. Luke enjoyed a chance to play after being bored in World Showcase, and Sara and I enjoyed having a moment to sit. As our dinner time was approaching, we were able to get the kids out of the playground and on the way to Mexico. And of course, on the way we had to stop at the cool station again

He was pretty cold when it came time to eat in the air conditioned, indoor, San Angel Inn.

Great trip report!

Last year I had a 5 year old who refused to come down from the 3rd level after I told him we had to leave. It took forever to actually convince him to come out..and he he was an extremely unhappy camper about leaving.

This year I skipped that section entirely.lol

 

[Lyear]

Our first full day at Disney came very early. It was hard to get out of bed following an almost full day at Epcot ending in Illuminations. We let the kids sleep as long as we could, then got them up and had some light breakfast in the hotel. We never have sugary cereal in our house, but for this trip Sara brought a box of Trix. This quickly became Makayla's favorite. She would bring the box to one of us whenever we were in the hotel room going, "I eat, I eat." It became normal for her to go through 3 bowls at a time.

After a while we were up and out the door, only a little bit later than what we had planned. Here you can see our window decorations for the week, along with our kids. Luke was feeling Goofy this morning.

You've likely all seen the inside of a value resort before, so I won't bore you with inside photos, but Sara took some time taking photos around our hotel on the way to the bus stop.

Makayla looks so small in this one, or Beauty and the Beast is just so large

Our room was first floor, on the left side in this photo, 2nd from the end. We were next door to the piano pool. Too bad it was closed for a refurb.

And the fountain. The area around it would become a popular racetrack for the kids this week. Luckily there were no major injuries.

A quick stop to fill up our mugs and we were on our way to Animal Kingdom. Once we arrived and got through bag check and the entrance, we spent a little bit of time exploring the opening area.

Here's Luke and Makayla learning about a skull (I can't remember what animal it belongs to). Hat tip to the cast member for being so enthusiastic and engaging. She really kept their attention.

And we wanted to walk under this stone archway.

And finally, we love this bridge. Luke remembered this from last year and wanted to do it again.

And yes, I do like the Sixers. Yes, it's been a very hard couple of years, but there's hope now... I actually got quite a few comments on my shirt this day.

Once we reached the Tree, we decided to get a photopass pic. Not our best

Not quite sure what face Luke is making

And Makayla is very concerned over this person taking our picture. Seriously, what do we know about this guy? Can we trust him?

Luke decided he'd better take a potty break before going on a week long safari ride. After the potty break, they just wanted to walk on this wall. It was hard getting them to the animals.

Finally, we pulled the kids away from the wall and we were on our way to Africa.

Again, I'll not post the same photos of animals here that you have likely seen many times before. I will post this guy though, because I never remember seeing the warthog up and as active as this guy was. He was running around, digging in the dirt, and doing whatever else warthogs do (in summer). Seriously, the Frozen soundtrack - get it out of my head.

They both really enjoyed the Safari. Makayla would refer to it as the "Amal ride" for the rest of the week. It took us a while to figure out what she was saying at first as it sounds like she was using a bit of a more vulgar term.

 

[Lyear]

Following the Safari, and the search for our stroller in the stroller parking section, we took a short break for yet another potty stop and snack time. Snack time consisted of a pack of Cheez-its we had brought along with us. The plan was to attend the 12:00 showing of Finding Nemo, so we didn't have a bunch of time. We decided to do a round trip train ride. Then go eat some lunch.

Here we are on the train, this time it was Luke's and my turn to make the silly faces.

Yes, we were the only people to not exit the train at Rafiki's planet watch. Hopefully sometime we'll get to let the kids do this area.

Once we arrived back, we realized we were going to be cutting time closer than we had thought. Our fastpass was for between 11:30 - 11:45, and it was already around 11:05. We made our way quickly to Restaurantosaurus, parked our stroller and went inside. Thankfully since it was so early (for lunch) there wasn't much of a line. Sara and I both ordered the black bean burger, and we got Luke an uncrustable with french fries and grapes. Makayla enjoyed the french fries and grapes. Looks like we didn't take any photos since we were in such a rush, but we ate in the next to the fossil section.

We rushed out the door, and it was clear we weren't going to make the fastpass time. I was pretty confident we would still get a decent seat since the auditorium is so big. We parked the stroller in the Rivers of Light seating area, which was cool to see, and ran to the entrance. As we passed the fastpass entrance, we saw a woman having an argument with a cast member about how she should be allowed in the fastpass entrance even though she didn't make it in time, and the cast member telling her the only option was to go into standby. And by argument, I mean this woman was yelling and waiving her arms pretty wildly. Another chapter in the "it's tough to be a cast member" book.

And then came yet another chapter. As we went into the standby line, we were behind a lady in a wheelchair. The cast member there clearly asked her if she wanted to stay in the wheelchair or transfer and she said she would transfer. Her husband (at least I assume it was her husband) was there asking if she was sure she could do it. Fast forward 2 minutes to when we were all entering the auditorium, and I pass this guy yelling (again, full-on yelling) at a different cast member about how he sees all these people inside in wheelchairs but they made his wife (he used "her", again assuming its husband wife) get out of her wheelchair.

I feel so bad for the CM's who find themselves in this situation. The last one was clearly a case of these people mishearing what was said and taking it out on someone else.

Anyway, back to our story...

There weren't many seats left as we entered. We were herded toward the right side of the auditorium, and ended up sitting in the upper section right next to the wall. But we got to see everything. Luke and Makayla both enjoyed it. Between this and the Nemo ride at Epcot, Nemo became one of Makayla's favorite characters on this trip. The show kept both kids attention, though by the end Makayla was getting slightly bored. Of course, following this, "Go with the Flow" was in my head the rest of the day. At least it wasn't a Frozen song.

After Nemo, the crowds were ultra heavy as I tried to make my way to get out stroller. At one point, there was a lady with two kids trying to back her stroller out so she could go, with lines of people going by behind her. I stop to give her some room, but the person behind me simply proceeds to go around me, and she was still in the same spot. She said "thanks anyway" and I went on through. These are the issues with having strollers in the parks. I'm sure all parents have similar stories.

So two other events transpired before we returned to our hotel room for a nap. First, we got Makayla an Ariel bubble wand. There were so many kids with these on this trip that it seemed there were bubbles everywhere. Second, Sara decided that she wanted to go to the Chester and Hester store to buy something. Seriously...that happened. As Luke, Makayla, and I are waiting for her, we saw Santa Goofy and Pluto come out.

Luke also decided that he really, really, really, wanted to ride the Triceratop Spin. I explained it was our time to go back to the hotel for a nap so we didn't have time to ride it now, and that was taken about as well as you might expect for a 5 year old. I told him we would see if we had time to ride later that night, knowing that our plans were to see Festival of the Lion King. This appeased him a bit, but he still wasn't happy. The rest of the time we spent watching Primevil whirl and looking for car 23. Once we found it, Luke essentially followed it though the whole track.

Finally, Sara returned, and we made our way to the front of the park, caught our bus and were back at All Star Music. But we had to let Makayla play a little bit before nap.

That thing seriously makes so many bubbles. With that we were ready for our much needed nap, with plans to return to AK later that evening.

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

Those bubble wands are seriously the best! Plus they keep kids entertained for a long time, even those watching get lulled into a zombie like state.

 

[blreinsel]

Kuddos to you for sticking to your guns and not giving in about riding Triceratop Spin! I get so tired of seeing parents let their kids get away with murder at Disney, or anywhere for that matter. It didn't kill him to wait (or not ride at all) and someday he'll be thankful that you acted as a parent and not a friend. I know I thank my parents all the time now as an adult!

 

[21stamps]

Those bubble wands are seriously the best! Plus they keep kids entertained for a long time, even those watching get lulled into a zombie like state.

I'm feeling like a horrible parent right now. Every time we are at our local amusement park, or when we've been at Disney, my son repeatedly asks for a bubble wand. I repeatedly say No. Poor little guy tries to run behind other kids who have them and dance around. Lol

 

[Lyear]

Great trip report!

Last year I had a 5 year old who refused to come down from the 3rd level after I told him we had to leave. It took forever to actually convince him to come out..and he he was an extremely unhappy camper about leaving.

This year I skipped that section entirely.lol

Ha, love it. Out of sheer curiosity, I just googled "inside mission space playground rocket ship," and...nothing. I think it will forever be a mystery what is up there. The kids seem to love it though. Thanks for following along.

Those bubble wands are seriously the best! Plus they keep kids entertained for a long time, even those watching get lulled into a zombie like state.

Yes, our kids will play with that thing until the bubbles run out every time. And they were seriously everywhere in the parks. Everywhere we went we would have to stop so they could pop bubbles.

Kuddos to you for sticking to your guns and not giving in about riding Triceratop Spin! I get so tired of seeing parents let their kids get away with murder at Disney, or anywhere for that matter. It didn't kill him to wait (or not ride at all) and someday he'll be thankful that you acted as a parent and not a friend. I know I thank my parents all the time now as an adult!

Hmmm...you may want to skip the next part of my report

I'm feeling like a horrible parent right now. Every time we are at our local amusement park, or when we've been at Disney, my son repeatedly asks for a bubble wand. I repeatedly say No. Poor little guy tries to run behind other kids who have them and dance around. Lol

Aw, definitely don't feel like a bad parent. I would likely have been totally oblivious to their existence if not for Sara. And that's the great thing about bubbles, all kids can enjoy them regardless of who is making them.

 

[Lyear]

We slept for about two hours in our room, and as we woke up I started going through our plans for the night in my head. We had planned to see the 6pm showing of Festival of the Lion King. I was trying to reconcile this with the fact that Luke had really wanted to ride the Triceratops ride, and that there was the playground in dinoland that we had talked about wanting to do for the past two years but never had made time for. And it was clear that Luke was at an age where he appreciates rides. My hope is that the day will come where he will appreciate the art, beauty, etc of Disney beyond seeing it simply as an amusement park, but 5 years old is definitely too young for that. Since we had subjected him to world showcase the day before and Nemo that afternoon, I asked Sara how she would feel about skipping FOTLK and doing the playground and dinoland instead. She was fine with it, so we changed our plans as we headed out the door.

Following AK, we had plans to eat at Boma at AKL, so rather than do the awkward bus trip from AKL back to All Star, we decided to drive to AK. This meant fun on the tram.

Makayla had a good time, despite what her face may look like.

Here we are entering the park. We made sure to bring Luke's pale and bucket. Turns out, they had plenty at the dig site.

And at one point Luke decided to wear a bucket for a hat.

We made our way to the playground since that closed before the park. We went to the dig site first. As we put her down, Makayla started screaming. She did not appreciate the "sand" getting inside her sandals. There were signs posted saying that you must keep you shoes on, so she didn't have much of a choice.

Eventually she learned to go with it, and we all had a good time digging up some bones. Even dad got in on the fun.

At home, we have an Animal Kingdom soundtrack which Luke uses as his sleepytime music as he's going to bed. For the most part the soundtrack is soothing natural sounds and music. The exception to this is the final song, which is an upbeat, reggae song called Digging in Dinoland. This song was playing in this area, and Luke was very excited that they were playing the song from the CD in his room.

We stayed in the dig site for about 20 minutes. I pulled out my video camera and shot a very boring video of the kids digging. You've been warned...



Following our time here, we went over to the other part of the playground. Here our kids separated, with Luke wanting to do the big slides, and Makayla feeling those were just a little too big for her.

Luke went down 2-3 of the big yellow tube slides, then noticed the giant one in the middle of the playground. It's probably 3 stories high. He wanted to go down it, and it's actually a bit of an obstacle course getting to the slide. They have rope climbing sections and bridges to go over. It was too late when I decided I would try to get some pictures of Luke as he was doing this stuff. Very hard to see him. You can sort of make out the Captain America jacket.

So what did he think? He loved it. He still talks about going down the giant slide today.

Makayla meanwhile found a slide that was more her slide, went down this one several times.

We stayed in the boneyard until they kicked us out at 6. We then found our stroller and made our way to triceratop spin. Luke was very excited to try this. Makayla was a little scared at first, but warmed up to it.

Luke had heard a loud noise so he was covering his ears in this photo.

And Makayla continues to make the best faces.

We sent several times since there was practically no line.

Finally, we had had our fill of Triceratop spin.

So was it worth it? Do I regret missing out on FOTLK to play in dinoland. FOTLK is one of my absolute favorite things in WDW, so it is sad that we didn't end up doing it this time. But honestly we have so much fun talking to Luke about his experiences this night, both the playground and Triceratop spin, that I'm glad we made the decision we did.

On our way out, we stopped to check out one of the showings of the Tree of Life Awakening. This was something I was looking forward to going into our trip. It was very well done and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting AK. It's amazing what they can do with the Tree of Life. Luke was not a big fan of waiting and watching the show, so we did have to have a brief talk with him about how we had done what he wanted all evening, now it was time to do something his parents wanted to do.

We exited the park preparing to head to Boma, but noticed fastpass photographers were standing around by the big AK tree, so we decided to get a quick pic.

 

[Lyear]

Our dinner reservation for this night was at Boma. Boma has been on our list of must do restaurants at WDW since Sara's and my first trip together. We love the unique food options that are inspired by African dishes. We arrived at AKL right around the time of our reservation, so we were a bit delayed checking in. No worries of course, we took a seat and in about 10 minutes our table was ready. Luke passed the time by playing angry birds on my phone.

Once our name was called and we were seated, Sara went through the buffet with Luke, while Makayla and I stayed at the table. Makayla spent the time arranging her napkin.

The line was relatively short so they returned in no time. Sara had a few African dishes on her plate. Luke went with the safer selections of macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and bread. We love bread, or at least making faces while holding bread. That's our little goofball.

And here we are very serious.

Sara and I then took turns going through the buffet to get things for everyone, with Luke coming some of the time. My apologies as the Boma food is so unique that I can't remember exactly what I ate, but it was all very good. They had these potato, spinich triangle shaped pouches that were delicious. We made sure to get a full size plate full of desserts as well.

Eventually, Makayla got tired of the fact that everyone but her got to get up from the table. She declared that she was all done, and when we didn't get her out of her high chair she began throwing silverware, napkins, and whatever else she could get her hands on off the table. When she had finally exhausted all her options, she gave us this look.

She remained a grump until our dinner came to an end and we exited the restaurant. espite Makayla's protests, Boma once again greatly impressed, and I am very confident in saying we will be eating here at our next visit. Sara and I both were very full, so we walked slowly to the stairs and up to the lobby.

We spent just a bit of time taking in the AKL lobby, as it truly is beautiful. We were going to take a walk outside, but had a full day at MK planned the next day, so we decided we should probably turn in for an early night.

On our way back out, we noticed there were photopass photographers again standing around a Christmas tree, so we got photos of us with stomachs full.

Since there was no one else waiting, the photographer suggested getting a shot of the kids, which I'm thankful for. Even if their faces don't exactly scream that they are excited to be there.

Here we go, this one is nicer.

With that we said so long to the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Day two was done, and we had Magic Kingdom to look forward to the next day.

 

[fractal]

I think you made the right decision. Your kids are the perfect age for Boneyard. They used to have a sign in the back that said "do not lift" or something like that. If you lift it you hear someone calling. Not sure if they still have that.

BTW - Love your husband's Sixer's shirt!

 

[Lyear]

I think you made the right decision. Your kids are the perfect age for Boneyard. They used to have a sign in the back that said "do not lift" or something like that. If you lift it you hear someone calling. Not sure if they still have that.

BTW - Love your husband's Sixer's shirt!

Hmmmmm...this is awkward. I'm the husband. I'm not sure how to respond .

Next year I'm going to be on a hunt for that sign.

 

[Lyear]

Day 3, Monday, was set to be a very busy day. The plan was for us to make it to Magic Kingdom for the Welcome Show, and stay for Wishes. Sara and I had debated many times whether our little family was up for such a day. Truth be told, I felt like I might have been the least capable of all of us.

One of the challenges of going to WDW in December is finding days to go to MK. They have the Christmas parties 4 nights a week, which means an early closing and no wishes those nights. Then one or two of the remaining days are extra magic hour days, which we try to avoid. Today seemed like a good day to try Magic Kingdom as it was a non-weekend, non-party, non EMH day. Unfortunately, a lot of people around Orlando had the same idea.

This was also the day Makayla got to dress up as Belle, her favorite princess.

The day started off with an early alarm. Sara and I woke up and then got the kids ready, and we were leaving our room by 7:40.

Luke wanted to push the stroller, and he had a helper.

You can just see Luke's head in this one. What a good helper. I like the fog in the background here.

And a close up of the princess.

A quick stop in the food court to fill our mugs, and we were at the bus stop by 7:50. And then suddenly.... The line for the MK bus was out of the queue, past the queue for Disney Springs/Typhoon Lagoon, past the queue for Animal Kingdom, and all the way to the Epcot Queue. We think there was a school trip in front of us because a large number of the teenage kids were wearing the same shirt.

Our plans to make the Welcome show looked like they were about to go up on smoke. Thankfully, three MK buses came back to back to back. I'm not sure if this was simply happenstance or if someone at All Star Music sent the distress signal (on a side note, wondering what a Disney distress signal would be is fun. I'm picturing a bat signal with a mickey head, but I'm sure there's a better one out there). We just made it onto the 3rd bus, and we were on our way to MK.

Once we arrived, Luke had to use the potty, so Sara gave me all the bags and Makayla and I toughed our way through MK bag check. Then we set up for the Welcome Show. We made it with all of about three minutes to spare. Nothing like cutting it close, and I'm not referring to my hair style.

Both kids decided they wanted to be held during the show. I took that as a challenge. So here I am trying to smile as I hold 60-70 pounds during a roughly 5 minute show.

And here is our view.

We got the fire chief. We had always had the mayor before. Makayla really liked the show. She was waving and saying "Hi Mickey, Hi Pluto puppy (her name for Pluto). Luke just wanted to get on rides. Again, someday I hope he appreciates this.

Once the show ended, we joined the hordes making their way under the train station and into Magic Kingdom.

 

[fractal]

Hmmmmm...this is awkward. I'm the husband. I'm not sure how to respond .

Next year I'm going to be on a hunt for that sign.

Hmmmmm...this is awkward. I'm the husband. I'm not sure how to respond .

Next year I'm going to be on a hunt for that sign.

Like I said; love your Sixers shirt!

 

[Lyear]

As we came out from under the train station and I saw the giant Christmas tree in the center of the square, with city hall on the left and Tony's on the right. It dawned on me that I was about to see Cinderella's castle for the first time in a year. I mentioned this to Luke, and it was met with a shrug. I was excited at least. For me it's so easy to get caught up in the "what are we doing next" of the moment and forget to stop and take it all in for a minute. Smell the Roses, so to speak. Or maybe the Main street bakery in this instance. In any event, this was a small epiphony I had as I was ready to lay eyes on the Castle.

Our walk down main street was soon joined by a trolley.

In fact all the vehicles were soon making their way down the street. We jumped up onto the sidewalk,and I made a passing comment that we got off Main Street and were now walking down Main Sidewalk. For the rest of the trip, when we were around Main Street, Luke would say "we're on main street, and there is main sidewalk." One of the fun memories of the trip. We would later add Main Bricks to our vocabulary when we were standing in front of the castle.

Our plan for the morning was to start in Tomorrowland and make our way towards Fantasy Land. We made a right at the hub and Tomorrowland was straight ahead. I guess most of the people were still taking photos of the castle or something, because Tomorrowland was deserted. In this moment, all the cast members who would later go on to monitor ride queues or assist visitors were standing by the main walkway, making bubbles with giant bubble wands.

Luke and Makayla were game, and they went on a bubble popping spree

Again, there was essentially no one in Tomorrowland, and the wind was taking the bubbles far. The kids were able to run around without fear of running into anyone, or getting lost. At one point Luke made it almost all the way to Space Mountain chasing a bubble. The cast members who were there loved his enthusiasm.

Eventually, we decided to leave the bubbles for other children, and go save the galaxy from Zurg. This had been one of Luke's favorite rides last year. I think we rode it about 5 times straight. This time we did two rides in a row.

Even Princesses can fight aliens

As we finished our second ride, Luke wanted to go on the people mover, so off we went.

Somehow Makayla and I got picked to ride backwards.

Once we exited peoplemover, it was almost time for our first fastpass at Tomorrowland Speedway. We decided to start walking that way, but first decided to ride the Tea Cups.

We had to promise Luke that we wouldn't spin the cup.

Makayla LOVED the tea cups.

She was doing a sort of fun, scream, giggle that I had never heard her do before. We decided to ride again, and I took some video hoping to capture it, but wouldn't you know she didn't do it again. You can hear Luke mimicking her voice though.



After a fun time on the tea cups, we went for a different kind of spin at the Speedway. Makayla was bit enough to do the cars this year, and she was thrilled that we got a yellow car to match her dress.

That's us back there

And Luke and Sara having some selfie fun

There was a small delay pulling back into the station as one of the cars ahead had broken down. Makayla kept yelling "Hi Mama hi Lukey" and they would turn around and wave at us.

Our day was off to a good start. We had been at MK for a little over one hour, and we had completed everything we wanted to do in Tomorrowland.

 

[Lyear]

Like I said; love your Sixers shirt!

And I'm glad you love the shirt. Trust the Process!

 

[Courtney6682]

Great so far! This is driving me NUTS tho... didn't makayla have a nickname in your last trip report??

My husband is a huge Joel embiid fan, were from Philly too;