Disney Hangover!
Bare with me... this one's going to be a long one!
I'd have to say that this is one of the worst hangovers I've ever had! *grins* But it was so worth it!! We are back from our Disney World vacation and it was definitely magical and absolutely perfect! We left Thursday, March 2nd and came home last Thursday, then 9th. While I was happy to see my parents and my bed... I am so sad to have left the gorgeous weather behind. Friday, when I arrived at work, the thermometer on my car showed a 91 degree dip in temp from our last day in the Disney parks (Wednesday). UGH!!! BRRRR!!!
In our eight-day voyage we managed to put on 3,500 miles by train, plane or automobile and over 55 miles by foot!! How crazy is that?!? Emmy Lou and I had a blast watching our Fitbits on this trip! Sometimes the simplest things entertain us. We all took the airport shuttle from our area for the first time. I recommend Skyline Shuttle to anyone in the area. They were awesome! It was so nice to not worry about getting to and from the airport, especially with as tired as we were yesterday. The girls flew for the first time and got their first set of wings! We all rode the monorail for the first time and also all became pros at riding the Disney shuttle buses. We rode a ferry boat and a water taxi too. All of that was an experience in itself!
I made last minute travel shirts for both of the girls for the trip down...
The first day we went to Magic Kingdom which was overwhelming, but awesome! We started with breakfast at Be Our Guest (The Beast's castle from Beauty & The Beast) and didn't stop going until 9pm seven days later!
The girls said their favorite ride at MK was Seven Dwarf's Mine Train (roller coaster), but they also liked Big Thunder Canyon (roller coaster) and The Hubby and I did too. We got so many compliments on our homemade shirts that day. We all had a bleached Mickey shirt on. I wish I'd gotten a group shot!! Here's Emmy Lou in her's. It was chilly that day, so they wore their sweatshirts most of the day.
We kicked the second day off with an Ohana breakfast with Lilo & Stitch and friends. Emmy Lou is a huge Stitch fan, so she was super excited. Abbycakes is a Pluto fan, so she was elated to find he was there too!
After breakfast we went to Hollywood Studios. Emmy Lou was absolutely enthralled by the Indiana Jones show! She asked at the end if I thought they did autographs, so I asked a cast member and she told us to hang out. Sure enough, they came back and chatted with the girls (who were the only ones waiting on them at that point). Marion even got them each a scarf just like her's and they signed their autograph books and posed for a picture. Emmy Lou was elated!!
The crowd favorite at Hollywood Studios was the Toy Story ride. We also did the Buzz Lightyear one at Magic Kingdom, but who doesn't like a ride that includes a little family competition!?
Day 3 we got a rental car and headed off Disney property. The Hubby drove us into Clearwater where we saw Winter & Hope from A Dolphin's Tale and A Dolphin's Tale 2. They live at a rescue aquarium on the Gulf, so we got to see other rescued aquatic animals like dolphins, nurse sharks, stingrays, sea turtles and even a little otter who's back legs no longer worked because he'd been hit by a car. Most of the animals we saw were hurt badly enough that they couldn't return to the wild, so they live at the aquarium full time. Emmy Lou is petrified of aquatic animals, so it was fun to see her realize they weren't horrible and feel empathy for the hurt ones, even if she was scared of them. We even got a boat ride over to their other building (where they house all of the movie memorabilia) and we saw a few wild dolphins jumping around!
After the aquarium we made our way through the insane traffic to Clearwater Beach. I FINALLY saw the ocean for the first time. I even waded in! My little northern girls went in almost all the way and enjoyed jumping waves and splashing around. We even saw a dolphin surface just out past where they were swimming! After a bit of swimming we enjoyed a stroll down the pier and some ice cream cones at an outside table while listening to the waves, people and sirens - we heard five different sets of sirens just in our area in the 90 minutes we were there! I'm very thankful that The Hubby isn't a firefighter down there! Dang!
Day 4 was another day with the rental car. This time we took it to Universal Studios. The Hubby, Emmy Lou and I ranked this as one of our favorite parts of our trip... The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! The girls got interactive wands and spent a big part of the day casting spells into the shop windows!
We also took the Hogwarts Express to Diagon Alley and back, again, to Hogsmead. We all tried a Butterbeer and The Hubby and I even had a couple of Harry Potter themed actual beers! They were very good too. The rides here were absolutely amazing! This was one park we walked out of saying we will DEFINITELY have to come back to again. Maybe next time we'll make it an adult only trip so we can hit all of the big rides we didn't get to check out!
By Tuesday (Day 5) we were feeling the exhaustion of going nonstop every day, so our time at Epcot was a bit shorter than any of the other parks. We also found the first ride that was a unanimous NOPE afterward. The Hubby doesn't do well with the virtual rides and Abbycakes hated the feeling of the G-force, so after Mission Space we all agreed it was time to take a break and just walk around for a bit.
By the afternoon, we wrapped up our Fast Passes and headed out to make all of the modes of transportation it would take to get us to our pre-booked luau - Aloha. I would highly recommend this dinner show to anyone who can find an open reservation! The kids really enjoyed the fire twirler, but we all enjoyed a relaxing evening with a fun show.
It was after we got back to our hotel that The Hubby realized Abbycakes was without her lanyard full of pins she had been trading and they were nowhere to be found in the backpack. There were tears and chats and we finally figured out she had taken them off to take a picture of them while she was on the beach with Sissy, waiting for the luau. We called, but they hadn't found them there. My sweet Emmy Lou offered to give all of her's to Abbycakes, but after a short chat and a "maybe they will still turn up" she went up and traded one of her last three pins for one that she knew her little sister had loved that was on her lost lanyard. It was a sad way to end the day, but we put the word out and had lots of people praying for some Disney magic!
Our final day was spent at Animal Kingdom and Disney Springs. Once we hit these two locations we could officially say we had been to every main stop on our list. Animal Kingdom turned out to be one of our favorite Disney parks. We started our morning with a safari where we saw everything from hippos and rhinos to elephants, cheetahs and giraffes and so much more in between! We even snagged a final character breakfast buffet per Emmy Lou's request! Oh and the girls got their first tattoos!! Henna tattoos of course!
After breakfast we found the first roller coaster that Emmy Lou and Abbycakes did not like! They've gone on plenty over the years and are pretty fearless, but I think the going backwards, in the dark, down a hill part was not overly enjoyed! Oh well! They bounced right back and we hit our only water ride of the trip. We got soaked and I learned that Emmy Lou doesn't like walking around in wet clothes. *hee hee* Good thing it was warm and she dried fast!
By the afternoon we decided to make one last call about Abbycakes's lost pins and to our happy surprise they had been turned in and were waiting for us back at the hotel that hosted the luau! WOOHOO!! You should have seen that girl dance her way to the monorail! We had one happy critter!
Once we got the pins we were off to the hotel to change and headed to Disney Springs for our final night of fun. It did NOT disappoint! We had dinner at T-Rex which was insanely cool - all of the dinosaurs moved and there was a meteor shower right over our heads every 20 minutes! We visited the giant Lego store and the girls did some serious pin trading. By the time we left to catch our boat back to the hotel Emmy Lou had her full collection of Tinkerbell and Alice in Wonderland pins while Abbycakes had all but one to finish off her collection.
More Disney magic took place that night when we stopped at the General Store at our hotel to buy some last minute items and snacks. Our hotel had a pin trading board that we checked daily. This final trip we walked up and found the final pin for Abbycakes's collection! It couldn't have worked out more perfectly!
The final morning was an early one... 4:00am EST, which meant 3:00am our time. You can see how excited they were to be catching the bus at 4:45am and leaving the happiest place on earth.
They were rockstar travelers though! After 12 hours of shuttles and airplanes, we made it back home to Nana, Papa and our furry kids. Needless to say, it took the entire weekend to get enough sleep to feel somewhat human again! What an amazing trip though. I know I said this would be a one-time thing, but we're hooked. The Hubby and I have started planning our solo trip (not to Disney, but we have the travel bug) and we are weighing our options between a Disney Cruise or a trip to California to go to Disneyland and see where The Hubby was stationed during his Marine days with all four kids this time. We'll see!
I'd have to say that this is one of the worst hangovers I've ever had! *grins* But it was so worth it!! We are back from our Disney World vacation and it was definitely magical and absolutely perfect! We left Thursday, March 2nd and came home last Thursday, then 9th. While I was happy to see my parents and my bed... I am so sad to have left the gorgeous weather behind. Friday, when I arrived at work, the thermometer on my car showed a 91 degree dip in temp from our last day in the Disney parks (Wednesday). UGH!!! BRRRR!!!
In our eight-day voyage we managed to put on 3,500 miles by train, plane or automobile and over 55 miles by foot!! How crazy is that?!? Emmy Lou and I had a blast watching our Fitbits on this trip! Sometimes the simplest things entertain us. We all took the airport shuttle from our area for the first time. I recommend Skyline Shuttle to anyone in the area. They were awesome! It was so nice to not worry about getting to and from the airport, especially with as tired as we were yesterday. The girls flew for the first time and got their first set of wings! We all rode the monorail for the first time and also all became pros at riding the Disney shuttle buses. We rode a ferry boat and a water taxi too. All of that was an experience in itself!
I made last minute travel shirts for both of the girls for the trip down...
The first day we went to Magic Kingdom which was overwhelming, but awesome! We started with breakfast at Be Our Guest (The Beast's castle from Beauty & The Beast) and didn't stop going until 9pm seven days later!
The girls said their favorite ride at MK was Seven Dwarf's Mine Train (roller coaster), but they also liked Big Thunder Canyon (roller coaster) and The Hubby and I did too. We got so many compliments on our homemade shirts that day. We all had a bleached Mickey shirt on. I wish I'd gotten a group shot!! Here's Emmy Lou in her's. It was chilly that day, so they wore their sweatshirts most of the day.
We kicked the second day off with an Ohana breakfast with Lilo & Stitch and friends. Emmy Lou is a huge Stitch fan, so she was super excited. Abbycakes is a Pluto fan, so she was elated to find he was there too!
After breakfast we went to Hollywood Studios. Emmy Lou was absolutely enthralled by the Indiana Jones show! She asked at the end if I thought they did autographs, so I asked a cast member and she told us to hang out. Sure enough, they came back and chatted with the girls (who were the only ones waiting on them at that point). Marion even got them each a scarf just like her's and they signed their autograph books and posed for a picture. Emmy Lou was elated!!
The crowd favorite at Hollywood Studios was the Toy Story ride. We also did the Buzz Lightyear one at Magic Kingdom, but who doesn't like a ride that includes a little family competition!?
Day 3 we got a rental car and headed off Disney property. The Hubby drove us into Clearwater where we saw Winter & Hope from A Dolphin's Tale and A Dolphin's Tale 2. They live at a rescue aquarium on the Gulf, so we got to see other rescued aquatic animals like dolphins, nurse sharks, stingrays, sea turtles and even a little otter who's back legs no longer worked because he'd been hit by a car. Most of the animals we saw were hurt badly enough that they couldn't return to the wild, so they live at the aquarium full time. Emmy Lou is petrified of aquatic animals, so it was fun to see her realize they weren't horrible and feel empathy for the hurt ones, even if she was scared of them. We even got a boat ride over to their other building (where they house all of the movie memorabilia) and we saw a few wild dolphins jumping around!
After the aquarium we made our way through the insane traffic to Clearwater Beach. I FINALLY saw the ocean for the first time. I even waded in! My little northern girls went in almost all the way and enjoyed jumping waves and splashing around. We even saw a dolphin surface just out past where they were swimming! After a bit of swimming we enjoyed a stroll down the pier and some ice cream cones at an outside table while listening to the waves, people and sirens - we heard five different sets of sirens just in our area in the 90 minutes we were there! I'm very thankful that The Hubby isn't a firefighter down there! Dang!
Day 4 was another day with the rental car. This time we took it to Universal Studios. The Hubby, Emmy Lou and I ranked this as one of our favorite parts of our trip... The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! The girls got interactive wands and spent a big part of the day casting spells into the shop windows!
We also took the Hogwarts Express to Diagon Alley and back, again, to Hogsmead. We all tried a Butterbeer and The Hubby and I even had a couple of Harry Potter themed actual beers! They were very good too. The rides here were absolutely amazing! This was one park we walked out of saying we will DEFINITELY have to come back to again. Maybe next time we'll make it an adult only trip so we can hit all of the big rides we didn't get to check out!
By Tuesday (Day 5) we were feeling the exhaustion of going nonstop every day, so our time at Epcot was a bit shorter than any of the other parks. We also found the first ride that was a unanimous NOPE afterward. The Hubby doesn't do well with the virtual rides and Abbycakes hated the feeling of the G-force, so after Mission Space we all agreed it was time to take a break and just walk around for a bit.
By the afternoon, we wrapped up our Fast Passes and headed out to make all of the modes of transportation it would take to get us to our pre-booked luau - Aloha. I would highly recommend this dinner show to anyone who can find an open reservation! The kids really enjoyed the fire twirler, but we all enjoyed a relaxing evening with a fun show.
It was after we got back to our hotel that The Hubby realized Abbycakes was without her lanyard full of pins she had been trading and they were nowhere to be found in the backpack. There were tears and chats and we finally figured out she had taken them off to take a picture of them while she was on the beach with Sissy, waiting for the luau. We called, but they hadn't found them there. My sweet Emmy Lou offered to give all of her's to Abbycakes, but after a short chat and a "maybe they will still turn up" she went up and traded one of her last three pins for one that she knew her little sister had loved that was on her lost lanyard. It was a sad way to end the day, but we put the word out and had lots of people praying for some Disney magic!
Our final day was spent at Animal Kingdom and Disney Springs. Once we hit these two locations we could officially say we had been to every main stop on our list. Animal Kingdom turned out to be one of our favorite Disney parks. We started our morning with a safari where we saw everything from hippos and rhinos to elephants, cheetahs and giraffes and so much more in between! We even snagged a final character breakfast buffet per Emmy Lou's request! Oh and the girls got their first tattoos!! Henna tattoos of course!
After breakfast we found the first roller coaster that Emmy Lou and Abbycakes did not like! They've gone on plenty over the years and are pretty fearless, but I think the going backwards, in the dark, down a hill part was not overly enjoyed! Oh well! They bounced right back and we hit our only water ride of the trip. We got soaked and I learned that Emmy Lou doesn't like walking around in wet clothes. *hee hee* Good thing it was warm and she dried fast!
By the afternoon we decided to make one last call about Abbycakes's lost pins and to our happy surprise they had been turned in and were waiting for us back at the hotel that hosted the luau! WOOHOO!! You should have seen that girl dance her way to the monorail! We had one happy critter!
Once we got the pins we were off to the hotel to change and headed to Disney Springs for our final night of fun. It did NOT disappoint! We had dinner at T-Rex which was insanely cool - all of the dinosaurs moved and there was a meteor shower right over our heads every 20 minutes! We visited the giant Lego store and the girls did some serious pin trading. By the time we left to catch our boat back to the hotel Emmy Lou had her full collection of Tinkerbell and Alice in Wonderland pins while Abbycakes had all but one to finish off her collection.
More Disney magic took place that night when we stopped at the General Store at our hotel to buy some last minute items and snacks. Our hotel had a pin trading board that we checked daily. This final trip we walked up and found the final pin for Abbycakes's collection! It couldn't have worked out more perfectly!
The final morning was an early one... 4:00am EST, which meant 3:00am our time. You can see how excited they were to be catching the bus at 4:45am and leaving the happiest place on earth.
They were rockstar travelers though! After 12 hours of shuttles and airplanes, we made it back home to Nana, Papa and our furry kids. Needless to say, it took the entire weekend to get enough sleep to feel somewhat human again! What an amazing trip though. I know I said this would be a one-time thing, but we're hooked. The Hubby and I have started planning our solo trip (not to Disney, but we have the travel bug) and we are weighing our options between a Disney Cruise or a trip to California to go to Disneyland and see where The Hubby was stationed during his Marine days with all four kids this time. We'll see!
Comments
Post a Comment