Thursday, January 5, 2012

Make a Wish trip: Monday, Day 3! The Magic Kingdom and Epcot

Here's the really funny thing about us Bents being on our first vacation EVER-- we slept a lot. And the kids even slept in every day! Some days we didn't even crawl out of bed until 9:30am. My original plan was to get out of bed everyday by 7am, have breakfast and get to those parks EARLY EARLY. 
Didn't happen. 
We soaked in the relaxation. And what was really funny was that once we got our lazy butts out of the door, we would get distracted by something really cool going on at Give Kids The World. Honestly, the resort itself was an AWESOME vacation.

So on this day, Natalie was so ready to meet her favorite princesses and get her wish on. We tried to get to The Magic Kingdom the evening before but I followed her lead- she didn't want to go yet. I think she had some extra primping and preparing to do, maybe?

Well, enjoy these photos! They go in order of our day at both parks!

James waiting patiently on our porch. I forgot to mention before, our villa was in the new section of the resort, so the villa was quite new- less than a year old!
"Come ooon I'm ready mom!"
I asked her to pose for me and this is what I got. God help me now.
This cute lake was also across from our villa. It was a BEAUTIFUL day.. it actually got pretty hot this day.

..and of course we drove over to the ice cream shop to get "breakfast". 


A little drive, a tram, and a monorail trip later we finally get there!
It was so crowded! Everyone had the same idea we did. 

We walked around a bit, heard some music right by Cinderella's Castle and wouldn't you know! a parade was happening and we had a chance to get a preview of some very special characters. We had a spot right up front of the parade!



Cinderella's Fountain. 

We made our way to the castle and found out that some princesses were all the way back at the front of the park. *face palm* Normally, we would have gotten a tiny bit frustrated but this was a mission and we didn't care. We just wanted to get there. 
Once we got to the building where they were, we showed the greeter at the entrance our "VIP pass" (Fastpass) . They gave Natalie very special treatment at the parks. The pass allows you to skip past the longer line and not have to wait nearly as long. This was the first time we used it and we kept gushing with gratefulness. We kept saying "seriously? just right on through?" You can tell we aren't use to that kind of treatment. At the regular line, there was an hour wait to even get near the door. We waited only...

10 minutes!

We slowly walked in and we saw her favorite 3 princesses ready for visits, all lined in a pretty row. I wish I had caught Natalie's face when that door opened. Her face... it LIT up bigger than the biggest Christmas tree.

And here they are.... this is also where I still get misty-eyed. Seriously, misty-eyed right now...






Natalie still won't tell me the secret. Gosh I love this!!



I thought that it was so wonderful how each princess spent a good amount of time with Natalie. I noticed they spent a little time with James and his face turned red. ; )
(later on into the trip it was discovered that James loves Belle and he is her boyfriend)


James was in heaven, too.
And now.... she gets to meet her extra special favorite princess... Sleeping Beauty!
Here she is walking over to her.. 



Natalie didn't want to leave. 
This is something she's never, ever going to forget. (Neither will we)



Once we were done having a wonderful visit with the princesses, Natalie wanted a "princess hat" and Sleeping Beauty wand. And that's what the princess got. 
After some shopping we made a trip to ride the Aladdin carpet ride. Well daddy and Natalie did. James sort of freaked out. We looked for Tinkerbell and we couldn't find her. I had heard of a few people walking by saying that she wasn't around so that was a bummer but that would at least explain why she wasn't there. James and daddy visited the Swiss Family Robinson tree house, while Natalie and I sat down to have a snack, which later they both told me was boring. That was only because they thought it was a ride. Ha. The views at the top are pretty cool though! 
Next, we visited the Wish Lounge (which was made especially for Make a Wish families. It is pretty new to the park. It was getting kind of hot and we needed a break from the crowds. 
We spent about 20 minutes there. During that time, James played his first ever game of checkers with daddy, Natalie relaxed, and I tried desperately to get a spot at Cinderella's castle for dinner with the princesses. It was old out. :( But at least we tried. It was really expensive, so we saved our money for more goodies. 


After lounging around the kids were hungry to we got some lunch and saw this ride down below. We had no idea what it was but the first thing you notice is the 2 hour long line.
We headed down there and once again, got VIP treatment and the greeter took us to the front of the line and they gave the front seats of this boat ride!

"It's a Small World"

the kids LOVED this ride so much that we rode it twice. 
if you're scared of dolls don't ride this ride. 
The ride has several themed areas that brought a whole lot of culture together: Mexico, the UK, India, the rainforest, etc and once you enter each section they each play "It's a Small World" in sync. 
It was actually kind of awesome.
After that ride, the kids were geared up for the Dumbo ride! I am still so happy that James agreed to try it out.

Natalie LOVED it. She loves rides! I'm sensing roller coasters in the future.






 After soaking in the beauty of the castle again, we visited TomorrowLand. There they had the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor attraction. Not really knowing what it was we checked it out! It was really really funny. We all got quite a few good belly laughs out. It was a half an hour interactive digital comedy show. We got seats right up front!
After we left the show, we caught the tail-end of a Christmas show. I whipped out the camera just in time to catch the fireworks shooting out of the stage! Talk about perfect timing. : )

At this point, the kids were getting really tired. It was at about 7pm. This was also the time I realized the castle changed colors. 

The kids rested in the double stroller and said that they were okay with going to Epcot. So off we went! On our way out of Magic Kingdom it was "snowing". It was actually foam snow but who cares it was snowing. 

A short monorail trip later:

For me personally, Epcot has always been one of the only things I have remembered from my Disney trip at age 8. I went with other students in the Baltimore City area who had the top grades in the whole area. It was for a few days right before Thanksgiving. The trip to Epcot Center always stands out.
It was kind of surreal to be back.. at the age of 32, with a husband, and 2 kids.
Many of the front entrance attractions had closed but honestly, the kids just wanted to see the "big ball". 
After seeing the big ball, we walked around and soaked in the mild evening. Below are misc. photos of the themed areas of the park.. I believe we started with Mexico. 

This was the ceiling of The House of the Whispering Willows. It was a gallery that showed the famous "Tomb Warriors Guardian Spirits of Ancient China". It was SO beautiful inside. The kids really loved it. At one point, Natalie got a hold of my camera and wanted to take photos.

Natalie's photos above and below. : )
We did buy 2 lightsabers and these were accidentally left on the airplane ride home. The kids have yet to ask for them. Thank god.

By this point, the kids were EXHAUSTED as were we. As the light show began, Natalie started screaming and James ran 30 feet away from us and then fell and skinned his knees. This all happening while I'm ordering us some coffee and hot chocolate. It was pretty chaotic.
Somehow we still caught photos of the amazing show. I still don't know how, I just don't remember. 




Then we made our way out of the park but it was a nice walk through Japan, the UK, and a few other areas.




...and Goodnight (as shown on the "big ball")  

We didn't get to bed until midnight but the kids were up and at 'em by 8am the next morning. I think daddy and mommy could have used another 8 hours of sleep. ; )

Next up! Tuesday's adventure at Sea World..and also, a swim party!

2 comments:

cartes said...

I am so jealous that Natalie got to meet Sleeping beauty! But what precious memories for her and you guys! When we went to Disney all my sister wanted to do was ride the Dumbo ride...and was sorely disappointed that it wasn't more like a roller coaster....We went in Feb of 95 when Fl had that massive cold snap....my parents took us to Epcot for the lazer light show and it was so cold out that my dad gave Shannon and I each one of his gloves and we put both of our hands in it....but I remember loving it none the less....

the nervous mom said...

Oh, I didn't know what the Dumbo ride was either. LOL the only way James would try a ride was if it was slightly boring and didn't look scary. That visit sounds so sweet.. see how you never forgot that moment?? Love that.