disney 2012 - day two - morning

day two morning objective: go to "real disney world", dine with princesses at cinderella's royal table in the castle, explore magic kingdom

now terrified of how long the disney buses take to get from place to place, we decided to be at the bus stop waiting no less than one hour from when we wanted to be somewhere. the view from our hotel rooms - it almost does look like new orleans.

waiting for the bus, with the nemo and minnie toys that mickey (ok, me) left for them while they were sleeping

watching the sidewalk sweeper guy draw a minnie mouse with water

impressive

the beauty of having dining reservations in a park first thing in the morning... the park is closed but we still get in and have the place to ourselves

talking with minnie

having fun with nemo (and a trash can.) he is a boy, after all.

as pickle keeps calling it... "cinderella's sand castle"

greeted by her majesty herself

gus gus!

waving her new cinderella wand ("free" with the meal.) ginny also got such a wand, which immediately following breakfast, she shattered by hitting it on the pavement, rockstar-style

a much more personable snow white

same sleeping beauty from epcot. she remembered us. it's so lilly's hair.

a new princess - ariel!

same belle from epcot, but in her regular belle dress. she also remembered us.

after breakfast, we met fairy godmother outside the castle

we rode winnie the pooh since there was a minimal wait, and then hit tomorrowland for buzz lightyear. after buzz, we found chip and dale. i think Q thought they were the other chipmunks (alvin and crew) but oh well

then we drove the race cars. fyi - there's a reason two-year-olds don't get driver's licenses. caroline tried to drive but it was a bumpy and decidedly unfast race.

then we hit the tea cups. the kids have been OBSESSED with alice lately so this was all very exciting.

alice and white rabbit were about to do a meet & greet so we patiently waited...

while they rode the tea cups

Q was sick of waiting, but caroline stuck it out and spent some quality time with white rabbit and miss alice

on to dumbo. it was a good thing we rode it when we did, because it closed for refurbishment the next day.

at this point, it was time for us to divide and conquer. the boys and ginny continued on through the magic kingdom, while krissy and i took the girly girls to the bibbidi bobbidi boutique (aka the drain-you-of-all-your-money-because-how-could-you-say-no-to-your-precious-princess-at-disney-world boutique.)

airport!

the beauty of travelling with four adults and a plethora of electronic gadgets... someone will get a picture of just about everything!

belles of the ball

the princess lunch at epcot was one of several character dining experiences that included a "free" photo package. ( god i love the dining plan.) these were our "professional" pics from akershus.

disney 2012 - day one

day one objective: get from philly to orlando without losing any children; meet princesses, explore epcot

we were up before the sun to catch our 8 a.m. flight. we successfully made it out the door before 5:30, as planned. amazing.

somehow, i didn't take any pictures at the airport or on the plane. but we made it. caroline's first airplane ride went smoothly. she sat with krissy and had a grand old time. we took the magical express straight from the airport and were able to get into our rooms even though we arrived well before the official check-in time.

towel mickey was waiting for us in our room.

we dropped off extra stuff and headed out to epcot for the first of our character dining experiences... lunch with princesses. it took an hour and a half to get from our hotel to epcot, despite their seeming proximity on the map.

autograph books out and ready for our first princess encounter. i don't fully understand it, but the kids go crazy for the autographs.

belle greeted us as we came in. i heart her dress.

as soon as we sat down at our table a princess parade began. aurora was our princess. caroline and lilly were way too eager to leave us at the table and follow a complete stranger through the restaurant.

ginny, however, was not a fan of the princess parade

lilly followed sleeping beauty right back to us at the conclusion of the princess parade. caroline did not. pickle was soon located trying to get adopted by jasmine and safely returned to us.

then the princesses made the rounds to each table. sleeping beauty kicked it off.

then cinderella. caroline was amazed.

and jasmine. she recognized caroline from the previous runaway attempt.

and the blandest of them all... snow white. pickle did show snow white that she was on her shirt.

after princess lunch (and the 1.5 hour bus trip to epcot), we realized that going back to the hotel before our dinner reservations (also at epcot) was pointless as we would get there and have to come right back, spending 3 hours on a bus instead of at the park. so we explored more of epcot instead.

as we strolled through china, we happened upon mulan. another princess off the list.

mulan was very concerned that quentin was not interested in meeting her. (to be fair, he's never seen the movie so he has no clue who she even is.)

mulan tries to convince quentin to take a picture with her

success! it's funny - the princesses were all great with the girls, but they all zoned in on Q

then we ditched world showcase for nemo since our handy wait-time app told us there wasn't any line

if you stuck around long enough, the seagulls said, "mine! mine! mine!" love it.

waiting for the "turtle talk with crush" show. this puffer fish had a thing for caroline. it stayed right by her the entire time we were waiting.

kids are friends. not food.

Q was enamored with the giant ball so we went there

riding "spaceship earth" inside the golf ball - not the most exciting ride in the world, but it was awesome to be off our feet for a bit

marie from the aristocats. again the kids didn't know who this was, but a kitty cat with a pink bow is good enough for pickle.

and jasmine again, this time with aladdin. jasmine remembered us. between caroline's earlier escape attempt and lilly's hair, we are hard to forget.

then we ate a yummy dinner at the hibachi place in japan. Q didn't even make it through the meal. caroline was out before we got on the bus to head back to the hotel.

day one = success

fyi

i am going to start the lengthy process of blogging the disney trip. be forewarned:

• i took over 3,000 photos
• many of them suck
• i am going to post them anyway

and it's probably going to get sappy - the trip was awesome. the kids loved it so much. and that made me love it even more. i remember being at disney world on our honeymoon, thinking that all these people there with small children were crazy spending all that money on a trip the kids won't even remember. i remember thinking that 5 was probably the youngest kid worth bringing there. scratch all that. now i realize - it isn't about the kids at all. it's about us. of course the kids had fun but they probably won't remember much of it. but we will remember all their excitement and every smile. and that's worth every penny.