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.

 

[MinnieM123]

Makayla looked adorable in her yellow princess costume! And once again, Luke is so funny--requesting that you do not spin the tea cup?!! (Maybe the thought the Tea Cups were more for a sight-seeing ride? ) His comments never cease to surprise me.

 

[MySmallWorldof4]

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

Well in this case those Ariel bubble wands may not meet his pirate loving fancy.

 

[LeighM]

Caught up on your trip report. I loved your last one and this one is just as fun

 

[blreinsel]

Oh my gosh.. Little Belle is so precious! Btw.. your next posts didn't change my mind about your parenting.

 

[Lyear]

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;

haha, yes, Makaya has a nickname of Kiwi, given to her by her silly brother. We still call her that, maybe not quite as we used to.

Makayla looked adorable in her yellow princess costume! And once again, Luke is so funny--requesting that you do not spin the tea cup?!! (Maybe the thought the Tea Cups were more for a sight-seeing ride? ) His comments never cease to surprise me.

Yes she loves to look and act like a princess. While we were waiting in line for the Teacups the first time there were some older kids who spun the teacups really fast. He didn't like that idea so we agreed we wouldn't spin our teacup, but just go where the ride took us.

Caught up on your trip report. I loved your last one and this one is just as fun

Thank you. Thanks for following along. We certainly had a lot of fun on our trip.

Oh my gosh.. Little Belle is so precious! Btw.. your next posts didn't change my mind about your parenting.

Yes she does make an adorable princess. She really enjoyed being Belle for a day. There's no right way to do parenting, we just try to do it the best we can on a day by day basis.

 

[Lyear]

Once we exited the Speedway, Luke declared that he wanted to do the people mover again. We didn't have any immediate fastpasses, so we walked back that way. Unfortunately, the people mover was broken down. The line was wound all about down at the base of the ride. We looked at it, and decided we would come back later in the day. Luke was not too happy. It's hard to explain to a five year old that rides break down. We showed him some cars on the people mover track that were stopped, and he seemed to get the idea.

About 90 minutes before, Tomorrowland had been nearly empty. Now it seemed to be overflowing with people. Stroller parking near Carousel of Progress had multiple lines at least 12 strollers deep, and trying to move around was a challenge with the large groups of people moving every which way. The early morning low crowd time had definitely passed.

We decided we'd go into the circus area of the new Fantasyland. We had talked about getting Luke on the Barnstormer, and this seemed like a great time to do it. Of course when he saw the splash and soak area, that had to come first.

The circus train in the area was making a ringing or whistling sound that he thought was loud, hence the covered ears. Makayla is not a big fan of getting wet thankfully, so we didn't have to worry about her running in while wereing her Belle dress. After a bit it was time for Barnstormer. Sara took Luke since Makayla is still too small. She said the line was filled up almost to the entrance, but it seemed like it only took about 10-15 minute to reach the ride. She also said this was about the first time in the vacation that she had felt the heat. Temperatures for the rest of our trip would reach the mid to high eighties, which is high when you've become accustomed to mid 30's.

As the approached the ride, Luke started to get apprehensive. He has been on small roller coasters before and loved them, but trying a new one always brings out a little fear. He was willing to brave it out however.

In the end, he really liked it. He couldn't wait to tell Makayla and me all about it. But first, they had to find us. Since the line for Barnstormer had read 20 minutes, I decided to take Makayla over to the big top tent to meet Daisy and Minnie. The line for this read 20 minutes as well, so I figured it would be just about the right time. I decided to meet Daisy since we had breakfast reservations at Chef Mickey's later in our trip, so she would get to meet Donald and Goofy there.

Like a lot of two year old's, Makayla is not a big fan of large characters in costume. We could not get a picture of her with Santa this year, because she would not go near him. So I knew going in it was possible she wouldn't like meeting the characters. But to my surprise, as we got in line, she seemed very interested in them. The room is set up with Donald and Goofy on one side, and Minnie and Daisy on the other, with the lines in the middle. Here's a photo of Goofy meeting guests on the other side.

Makayla wanted to be held, but not because she was scared, but because she wanted to see the characters. She would look one way and say "Hi minnie, hi quack quack" (Quack Quack is her word for Donald or Daisy). Then she would look the other way and say "Hi Foofy, Hi quack quack." When I tried to put her down once, she protested because she wanted to be able to see them and say hi. I was so happy that this was going to be a success. Here we are getting ready to meet Daisy.

Once the group ahead of us had finished, I started walking forward as Daisy turned around and waved at us. Then...Makayla screamed. Then...she ran. She turned her little Belle dress around and sprinted full speed toward the entrance. Straight for the entrance. Under the queue lines which made it hard for me to follow her. I quickly dropped my backpack and snuck under the lines to catch her before she was out of the tent. Everyone was watching us then as we came back, but even if I was holding her, Makayla would not go close without screaming and pushing as hard as she could to get away. After our brief try, I called it quits, picked up my bag and headed for the exit. We had to walk past Minnie, and Makayla insisted that I stay between her and Minnie. Maybe next year.

Just as we were exiting, Sara and Luke were entering to try to find us. So it took a while and a few phone calls that went to voicemail before we were finally able to locate each other. Luke was so excited to tell me all about the barnstormer, and Sara got a very good laugh out of Makayla sprinting out of the tent.

 

[Lyear]

Once we had exchanged stories, Luke wanted to do the splash area again. He decided it was still noisy.

At one point, a camel that spits water got Luke really good. Still smiling. Either in spite of being soaked, or because he was soaked.

It was time for our second fastpass - Dumbo.

Someone was feeling a little sleepy in line

But she was soon excited

And Luke is wet and ready to go

At first, Makayla would freak out if I tried to get us up in the air.

Little by little, she enjoyed getting higher.

We walked out of Dumbo just as the Main Street Philharmonic was playing. Look at them standing so nicely together. One of the few moments where they act like they like each other.

To my surprise, Luke hardly objected to standing and watching their show. We listed to about 4 songs before they began their parade route to the front of the park.

It was now approaching noon, which meant it was time for our lunch reservation at Tony's. We began to head to the front of the park. On the way we found a good photo op.

Luke's a goofball

Better than the grumpy pic. Smile kids, you're in Disney World!!!

As we walked past, the castle stage show was on. We stopped and watch, just in time for Anna and Elsa to come out and Elsa to sing "Let it Go." You can't get away from that song in Disneyworld.

I remember as we were watching I was trying to line up a picture of the back of the kids heads as they watched the characters on the stage. I had it all set and was just about to press the button as a rather large man walked right in front of us and stationed himself there to watch the show. I looked at Sara with my "Seriously???" look, and Sara responded that she saw him coming and just knew it was going to happen. Oh well, those things happen at WDW. We took that as our cue to leave and walked down "main sidewalk" towards Tony's.

 

[Lyear]

When we had initially booked lunch at Tony's, it was part of the Main Street Electrical parade package, with the parade being scheduled that night. Of course, the Main Street Electrical Parade is no longer happening at Magic Kingdom. About three months before out trip, we got a call from a Disney cast member asking if it would be ok if they switched the passes for the Electrical Parade to the Festival of Fantasy Parade. I was sort of in shock that Disney would call me about this, so without really thinking, I said that was fine. Now I'm wondering what else I could have possibly held out for. With this change, we were now going to need to be in the park at 3pm for the parade, which is usually our go back and rest time. So...the reason we planned to spend the entire day in the park can be traced back to Disney's cancellation of the Main Street Electrical Parade

As we approached Tony's and parked our stroller, Luke recognized the space instantly as where we played tag last year while waiting for our mouse ear embroidering to be done. He asked immediately if we could play again, to which I had to reply no, since we were already a bit late for our reservation. This set off a case of the five year old grumpies which would last until well after we were seated.

We checked in at the front desk, then I took Makayla into the bathroom and changed her out of her Belle dress, since we didn't want a giant tomato sauce stain on it. Right around the time we finished they had called out name. We were seated in the inside part of the restaurant, almost right where you enter. I didn't take a photo of our table, but here's a photo of Makayla eating and coloring that might give you some idea of where we sat.

So a perk of doing the parade viewing package is that you get to pick appetizers. Sara picked a bread and cheese dip.

Luke got apple slices

and I got the Zucchini Fritte, which is a fancy way to say zucchini fries.

Luke remained grumpy until his apple came. He began to work on his kids menu puzzles and needed help with the crossword, which calmed him down. For our meals, I got the pasta primavera, Sara got the Margharita pizza, and Luke got the grilled cheese dippers. No photos of the meals (sorry), but here's a photo of Makayla with parts of all of ours.

As we were finishing, Makayla, similar to last night, declared she was done and wanted to get out of her high chair. This led to another round of throwing items off the table and screaming (It really is so much fun eating with young children ). Around this time, the waiter came and got our dessert orders. Luke was going to have a chocolate cupcake, with Sara having a chocolate hazlenut cake, and Makayla and I split a cannoli. The cannoli was excellent.

Overall, we had a good experience at Tony's. I thought my food was excellent. I enjoyed eating there for lunch as opposed to dinner, but the food is the same anytime. We left the restaurant very full and began walking towards our next fastpass.

 

[Lyear]

Our final fastpass this day was to meet Rapunzel and Tiana. You may remember from our last trip report that Rapunzel is Luke's favorite princess. We've seen the "Tangled" move well over 30 times. Luke's favorite character in it is Flynn Rider, but as far as princesses go, Rapunzel is on top.

We made our way to fantasyland and into the fastpass line. It wasn't a long line, but it didn't seem to be moving quickly. Perhaps the princesses were on a lunch break. Anyway, our kids quickly got bored, and maybe they were experiencing a little sugar rush from dessert, because they quickly both became both off the walls energetic and crazy. They were running circles around us in line. Sara and I try walk the line between being overly disciplinarian in parenting vs letting our kids run wild. In this case, it honestly seemed there was little we could do. Despite our repeated attempts to stop them and tell them it was time to settle down, they would revert back to chasing each other a few seconds later. Soon enough, one of them was crying. I heard a thud behind me and Makayla was down and in tears. Sara said she fell and hit her head on the corner of the floorboard and wall. Leave it to our kids to find a way to hurt themselves when there is really nothing there to hurt themselves on.

Here's a photo of Makayla the next day. She did hit herself pretty good.

The one good thing about the injury is that it aided in bringing our crazy kids under control. Soon after, they were calling us in to meet Rapunzel.

Unfortunately, Makayla quickly made it clear that she wasn't going to go any closer to princesses on this trip than she would to Minnie and Daisy. She would scream if I tried to get her too close. So all of our photos with princesses where without Makayla.

Luke, on the other hand, had one of the more interesting interactions I've personally experienced. It could be that he was more interested in Makayla's screaming, since I was standing with her near the photographer, but he refused to look away from the camera. Rapunzel was busy asking him questions, and he was answering, while never breaking contact with the camera.

At one point, I told him "it's ok to look at her," and he finally turned to face her.

Anyway, it was a good interaction he had, at least from what I could hear over Makayla's screaming. They talked about Flynn Rider a lot, and how they would go on adventures, and how Luke can lead Makayla in adventures just like Flynn did with her.

Next it was time to meet Tiana. Luke has never seen Princess and the Frog, so he had very little idea who this was, and the conversation went quick.

When we finished, Luke really wanted to do the people mover again. We walked over there, but once again discovered it was closed. We decided to head to the front of the park and find our seats for the parade.

The reserved seating for the parade is right in the flagcourt, Christmas tree area, just as you enter the park. It allowed Sara to take an interesting picture of the very tall tree.

Pluto was also there, meeting guests until just before the parade started.

As we settled into our seats, the Philharmonic were making their way down Main Street.

We were very happy with our view. After the philharmonic had passed, it was about a 15 minute wait until the parade reached us.

Luke was not sure what to expect, but he knew it was pretty hot sitting there in the sun.

And Makayla ready to go, now in her mermaid shirt.

Soon enough it was time for the parade to begin.

 

[Lyear]

This was our family's first time experiencing the festival of fantasy parade. I was excited for it. I think if Luke had his way he would have rather been riding rides during this time, but I told him I was sure he was going to enjoy it. He remained a bit more skeptical.

As you might imagine, we (Sara) took a ton of photos. In my opinion, there are plenty of great FOF photos online, even in this forum, so I won't be sharing all of them, but only the ones that were special to us.

The parade began with Belle and the Beast dancing on their float, which Makayla loved. As soon as she saw them she started saying "Hi Belle" and waving.

It was great to be so close with an unobstructed view.

Soon after, one of Luke's favorite characters made an appearance.

Luke waved at all the characters, but was extra excited to see Flynn. Flynn caught his gaze and waved, which Luke seemed to really like.

Shortly after came Ariel, which Makayla was again very excited about. She was waving and saying "Hi Mermaid," and at one point Ariel looked down and waved at us, so that made Makayla's day.

After a while, Captain Hook came by, one of Luke and Makayla's favorites from Jake and the Neverland Pirates

They really liked watching the Tic Toc Croc chase them down Main Street.

Luke was a bit scared of these guys. I mean, just look at how tall and menacing they are.

He was glad when they made it past us. He continued to keep an eye on them the entire way around the square.

Finally, it was time for some of our favorites from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Makayla was saying hi and waving to all of these guys very enthusiastically.

Mickey and Minnie were followed by a swarm of guests making their way down Main Street. Sara and I decided we would just stay where we were for a bit to let the crowds thin out. We both greatly enjoyed the parade. I especially was happy to see Luke and Makayla interact so much with the characters. Makayla seemed to enjoy saying hi to them from a distance. . I asked Luke what he thought and he said he liked it, and that he was glad we took the time to watch it. I count that as a win

After the crowds had thinned, with Luke's nudging, we decided that we would take yet another attempt at the people mover.

 

[MinnieM123]

Oh, what fun parade pictures!! Those were great.

Still following along with the kids' antics throughout the trip. Poor Makayla falling down and hitting her head; I'm glad she wasn't really hurt and is o.k..

Kids have so much excess energy--as an adult, I wish I had some of that!

 

[Lyear]

Oh, what fun parade pictures!! Those were great.

Still following along with the kids' antics throughout the trip. Poor Makayla falling down and hitting her head; I'm glad she wasn't really hurt and is o.k..

Kids have so much excess energy--as an adult, I wish I had some of that!

We really enjoyed the parade, and I have to give credit to Sara for the pics. I remember reading a few reports of where people have gotten seriously injured, very thankful that wasn't us on this trip. And yes, our kids (and all kids) seem to have so much energy. I know mine wear me out very quickly.

 

[Lyear]

On our way up Main Street towards the people mover, we ran into a CM selling balloons. Both kids instantly wanted one, and since we were planning to get them on this trip anyway, we made the quick stop.

luke chose yellow, and Makayla wanted purple. I like Makayla's expression in this picture.

And here we go down Main Street

Of course, in Luke's hands, a balloon can become a weapon. You can't tell in the photo, but he's trying to push his balloon to hit Makayla's, but ended up hitting Makayla and me in the head several times.

And the posed shot

When we got to the peoplemover it was closed...again. We noticed the cars were running though, so we decided to stick around, and sure enough in about 5 minutes they opened it. Luke was happy.

and then this started

and it quickly turned into this.

The nap was very short-lived. She woke up when we picked her up to get off the ride. And Luke was very happy to have ridden the people mover again.

Following this, we made our way to Fantasyland and did Philharmagic. Luke repeatedly was saying, "it's right in my face."

Then it was time for what would become the source of the title of this trip report, the carousel. Both Luke and Makayla have ridden the carousel before, so it wasn't a new ride for them, but it's one they enjoy.

Here's Makayla ready to go.

And Luke

We did the carousel twice, but Makayla would have been happy to ride it continuously for the remainder of the day, or week for that matter. Throughout the remainder of the week, regardless of what park we were in, Makayla would announce, "I horsey again." In Hollywood studios - "I horsey again." In Epcot - "I horsey again." We had found her favorite ride of the week.

 

[Lyear]

When we were finally able to get Makayla away from the horseys, we continued on our way through Fantasyland to the Tangled bathroom area. It was starting to become dark.

Luke really enjoyed the little details from the movie in this area. Here is Rider's satchel and some armor from the soldiers. He was also quick to point out the frying pan on the outside and the ones on the inside of the bathroom. Great job with the theming Disney. It really speaks to the work they did that a 5 year old notices and is enthralled by what he sees.

We sat down for a bit in the area outside the bathroom once we had done our potty break, and it was very nice to sit for a while. We had been walking a good bit of our day. While we were here, I remembered that you can now add additional fastpasses if you've used all of yours in a day, so I went online and made us a reservation for Enchanted Tales with Belle for 8pm.

This was essentially bonus time in the park for us. As I said before, our typical plan is to go back to our hotel room to take a nap, which when you count in the time actually sleeping and transportation to and from the hotel, can add up to be about 4 hours. So we were essentially getting this amount of time added to our day. The exchange, or course, is that you miss out on your nap. The kids were clearly getting a little tired, but they were troopers and we kept going.

As we sat in the Tangled area, Sara and I tried to come up with what we wanted to do next. We decided to take the ferry boat ride since we were in that area and it was something Luke and Makayla had never experienced.

Once we were aboard, it became clear we were pushing our children to their limits.

We were on the top deck, per Luke's request. He initially was excited to go on the boat ride, but became disappointed when he saw how slow it went and that there wasn't anything to do but look out. I think he felt like we pulled the old bait and switch on him. He was continuously asking when we would be done throughout the ride. Makayla was tired and we knew she wanted to lay down. She ended up resting on my shoulder for a good part of the trip.

You get some unique views on the riverboat, and these came as it was changing from dusk to nighttime.

In the time between Luke's protests that he wasn't enjoying this ride, I found myself enjoying the narration of the trip. There's nothing overly special about it, but it's what I would call an old-timey, laid back narration. For what would become, for Sara and me, a nice, relaxing part of our day, the narration fit the mood perfectly. And after what, for Luke, seemed an eternity, the boat pulled back into the dock and we walked to the bottom to exit. As we left, he became very interested in how the paddle wheel worked. A final picture as we leave, with nighttime having fully arrived.

At this point, Luke said he was hungry. We sat down on a bench right outside the boat and enjoyed some cheez-its and sour patch kids.

We then decided to do another new attraction for them, the Country Bears.

Luke and Makayla were both alert and seemed to enjoy the show. This really caught me off guard. I appreciate the show, but I figured the kids would quickly lose interest in it. But to my surprise they remained focused on the show, and were dancing and moving in their seats. I think the fact that the point of focus for the show is always changing helped.

Since we hadn't had dinner yet, and since the exit for Country Bears essentially leads into Pecos Bill's, we decided to eat our dinner there. Sara and I both had the veggie fajitas, and Luke had Mac and Cheese. Makayla once again enjoyed a little bit of everything. After dinner, we were feeling the drain of a long day, but were ready to begin the final leg with a visit to Belle.

 

[MinnieM123]

I've never been on the riverboat at night. That looked like a very nice experience. I wonder how late they run the boats in the evening (for some reason, I only thought they were operational during the daytime). Then again, maybe the evening rides might be a seasonal thing only.

 

[Lyear]

I've never been on the riverboat at night. That looked like a very nice experience. I wonder how late they run the boats in the evening (for some reason, I only thought they were operational during the daytime). Then again, maybe the evening rides might be a seasonal thing only.

I checked my disney experience and the hours for the riverboat today are 11-1 and 4-6. So you are probably right that it usually doesn't run at night. Because of daylight savings I guess it was operational since it gets dark so early. Seems like a very limited time to ride the riverboat.

I had wanted to go to Tom Sawyer Island this trip, but never made it. It's only open until 4pm, at least while we were there.

 

[Lyear]

Since we were meeting Belle, we figured the only proper thing to do was to dress Makayla in her Belle dress again. So we made use of the Pecos Bill's bathrooms to do that before we left, then walked towards New Fantasyland. Somewhere along the way poor Makayla finally gave in to the sleepiness that had been enveloping her, and by the time we arrived at stroller parking she was fast asleep. I tried a bit to wake her, but it was no use. She was out. So unfortunately the biggest Belle fan in our family was going to miss out on meeting Belle.

Luke was interested in what was going on, but he didn't want to take part in the story.

He was willing to line up and have his picture taken.

Twisting his hands in his shirt is Luke's unconscious nervous behavior

As a first timer to Enchanted Tales, I thought it was ok. Given the title, I was expecting more of a storytime than what it was. The story part of the experience seemed to only last 1-2 minutes. But I appreciate that WDW is trying to do something outside of just another meet and greet, and the fact that all the kids got a bookmark was very consistent with Belle's character.

At this point we had about an hour and a half before Wishes. We were going to make it a whole day!!! We decided we would split up, with Makayla and I grabbing a spot for wishes, and Luke and Sara riding a few more rides in Tomorrowland. Makayla and I found a spot on the bridge between Main Street and Tomorrowland, just about right under where Tinkerbell flies. Makayla lay asleep in her stroller for about a half hour, before becoming a little restless. She has always been a belly sleeper, and laying on her back wasn't agreeing with her. I ended up picking her up and holding her and she went right back to sleep.

Luke and Sara rode Buzz Lightyear twice and the people mover once. Two of Luke's favorite WDW rides.

The castle at night, from the peoplemover

Following this, they met me on the bridge, and we awaited the start of Wishes.

The time seemed to go very quickly, and Wishes was upon us. Luke enjoyed seeing Tinkerbell fly over us. Makayla stayed asleep through the entire show, and Luke, while wearing his earmuffs, laid his head back on the bench and was soon asleep as well. Sara and I enjoyed the show together. For me, it was peaceful. It sounds way too cliche, but hearing Jiminy Cricket's narration, hearing the classic songs I've heard so many times, and seeing the fireworks in the sky was a great ending to what had been a great day in the park.

Once Wishes was over, we woke Luke up to get him in the stroller, but he was clearly only half there. He became frustrated that he couldn't lay down. We made it to the bus stop, which, as we expected, was full. We ended up having to wait for another bus once we got to the front of the line because there was standing room only and we knew Sara would need a seat to hold Makayla. The people around us in line were very generous and sympathetic and offered to take some of our bags onto the bus while we loaded with two very sleepy kiddos. Luke fell asleep again on the bus ride home. Once we arrived at All Star Music, we got them both into the stroller and went straight to our room. Once in the room, they both laid down and fell back to sleep instantly.

Sara and I stayed up talking just a bit, feeling very accomplished at all that we had accomplished in one day. We felt like we had done well over half of MK. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it was a feeling of relief to know that outside of our planned fastpasses for later in the week, there weren't any more attractions in MK that we felt we must do. Finally, we spoke with slight lament as we tried to figure out what we were thinking when we planned a breakfast reservation at Hollywood and Vine for 8:45am the next morning.

 

[blreinsel]

As much as I enjoy Enchanted Tales with Belle, I hate the concept of it being a "meet and greet." The only way that adults are allowed to "meet" Belle is by getting chosen to be in the show, which is rare. Belle is my favorite, so I'm always disappointed that the only way to get a picture with her in her gown is by paying $$$ to eat at Akershus (whose menu does not entice me).

 

[LeighM]

As much as I enjoy Enchanted Tales with Belle, I hate the concept of it being a "meet and greet." The only way that adults are allowed to "meet" Belle is by getting chosen to be in the show, which is rare. Belle is my favorite, so I'm always disappointed that the only way to get a picture with her in her gown is by paying $$$ to eat at Akershus (whose menu does not entice me).

And Belle isn't guaranteed to be the main meet at Akershus. The first time we ate there, it was Ariel meeting guests in her green gown. However, Belle was out the next day in her yellow ball gown at EPCOT during an unscheduled meet and greet near the Land Pavilion. Sometimes you never know where characters may show up

 

[blreinsel]

And Belle isn't guaranteed to be the main meet at Akershus. The first time we ate there, it was Ariel meeting guests in her green gown. However, Belle was out the next day in her yellow ball gown at EPCOT during an unscheduled meet and greet near the Land Pavilion. Sometimes you never know where characters may show up

Exactly! Though I love the spontaneity, it is disappointing when you're expecting a certain character and then they don't show. We booked 1900 Park Fare 2 years ago, mainly to see the stepsisters.. guess who wasn't there. We were so bummed!