Disneyworld

So... the last post I did was about Thanksgiving.... and now it is March. Oops! I have so many things to blog about that it overwhelms me to think about so I have just been putting it off.  Right now I am going to tackle our Disneyworld trip because I want to make sure that I don't forget anything about it! I am not into scrapbooking so I want this blog to be a way for the girls to go back and read about our trip and see pictures of it. It is a VERY long post but I wanted to make sure that I got all of the details.

We left for Disneyworld on a Wednesday evening after work and school. Ben's parents came to Frisco to keep Aubrey. Our plan was to miss 3 days of work and school (Thursday, Friday, and Monday) so that we could be there on the girls' actual birthday and so that we could go during this "off" time when everyone is in school and miss some of the crowds. There ended up being a huge ice storm in Texas while we were there so school was cancelled 2 of the 3 days we were gone. That worked out perfectly! By the time we got to the airport, got on the Magical Express to the hotel, and checked in, it was 1:00am when we got in bed. Of course, that didn't stop the girls from waking up super early the next day because they were so excited.

 

 

  

 

Look who showed up in our hotel room and brought autograph books for the characters to sign.





 



Day 1: We started our day at Magic Kingdom. I have never been to Disneyworld so walking in for the first time felt so.... well.... Magical! It is just amazing. I had a whole itinerary planned out of what to ride first and what order to ride things and what time to eat, etc, which of course went to the wayside after our first ride. But it all worked out and we spent the morning riding some rides and meeting some characters. The first characters that they met were Rapunzel and Snow White. To say they were star struck would be an understatement. Even though the princesses were asking them questions and talking to them, Ava and Macy just stared. They were even a little hesitant to get close for a picture. We also met Belle that day (my favorite princess!). Maybe I was a little star struck too?!?! After lunch, we rode a couple of more rides then went back to our hotel to rest. After our late night and early morning, we definitely all needed a break.

Waiting for the bus to take us to Magic Kingdom

 

 

Playing in the water.

Waiting in line to meet Rapunzel and Snow White

 

 

 

 

Our hotel... Port Orleans Riverside



 

After a nap, we headed to the Contemporary hotel to Chef Mickey's which is a character dinner with Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, and Goofy. The girls seemed a little more at ease with these characters. Dinner was good and we got some good pics with the characters. The travel consultant that I used to book all of our dinners told all of the restaurants that we were celebrating the girls' birthday so they got special treats at all of our dinners! 

 

 

 

 

After dinner, we went back to the Magic Kingdom to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. There was Christmas music, lights, Christmas shows, parades, hot chocolate and cookies, and even snow! It was really fun. The parades at Disney are so awesome! I think that was my favorite part! After riding more rides and participating in all of the party festivities, we headed back to the hotel. I can't remember exactly what time we got back but I think it was somewhere around 11:00. Can you say exhausted???

 

 

 

 

 

So they were a little tired waiting for the parade to start.

Macy was complaining that her legs were tired so Ava offered to hold her. : )

I loved how emphatically they waved at each character on the floats. Then they would turn around to me and say, "She waved to ME!!!"

 

 

Oh.. and I have to tell this story because, let's be honest, the whole trip wasn't glitz and glamor. So, we are on the bus heading back to our hotel and Macy is in Ben's lap and Ava is in my lap. The girls had fallen asleep. We are almost to our hotel when all of the sudden the little girl sitting next to Ben starts puking everywhere. Like SO much vomit. All over herself, her mom, the floor of the bus, Ben's leg, Macy's shoes. It was so gross! Ben can handle a lot of things but vomit is NOT one of them. The mom starts yelling for the bus driver to pull over and is holding her hand over the girls mouth but that is just making the puke spray everywhere even worse. When the bus stops, we jump off and because the girls were asleep when it happened they each thought that the other one was the person throwing up so they are yelling at each other and saying, "You threw up on me!!!! Gross!!!" In all the chaos, I was trying to tell them to be quiet because it was someone else that threw up and not their sister. Some lady on the bus gave me baby wipes and napkins so I used that to clean it off of Ben and Macy as best I could but we had to get back on the bus to get to our hotel. Of course I am dead tired when we get to the room... but I still had to soak clothes in the bathtub and clean vomit off of Macy's shoes. It was awful and so gross!! Let's just say day 1 had lots of high points but also some low points. : )

 

 

Day 2: The second day of our trip was Ava and Macy’s birthday! It was SO special to celebrate their 6^th bday at the happiest place on Earth. They wore buttons that said, “It’s my Birthday” so EVERYONE said Happy Birthday to them all day long. Seriously… every single Disneyworld worker (and a lot of visitors) that we passed said Happy Birthday to them. We also had a call from Mickey and friends on our hotel phone that morning singing and wishing the girls a Happy Birthday. So cool! We went back to Magic Kingdom and rode all of the rides in Tomorrowland and then re-visited some other rides that we liked the day before.

 

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They loved these Mickey ice cream treats!

 

DRIVING on the Tomorrowland Speedway! Macy loved this!

 

Stitch

I think he liked Ava! : ) Macy is under there too. See her leg and a little bit of her head?

That afternoon the girls had an appointment at Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique. Gigi bought the girls new princess dresses for their birthday. Ava picked Rapunzel and wore her dress the whole day. Macy picked Ariel and would not put hers on until it was time for the BBB appointment. She doesn’t like to wear anything that is “itchy” which to her is pretty much anything other than jeans and a tshirt. After a little pleading and a compromise that she could wear her tshirt under her Ariel dress, she finally put the dress on in time for the appointment. Ava is all about dressing up like a princess and getting her hair done but it is not really Macy’s thing. However, she really likes the princesses and doing this at Disneyworld is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so I pretty much MADE her do the boutique. Ben and I think that she secretly loved it but had too much pride to admit it. : )

99% of the girls that do BBB pick the “Princess Hairstyle.” However, Ava is a 1%-er and picked the “Diva.” I tried to talk her out of it but she was dead set on it because it came with hair extensions. Her dream come true is to have really long hair so there was no changing her mind. Oh my…. We called it her princess mullet for the rest of the trip. It was definitely…….. interesting. Because of everything else we had going on this day we didn’t go back to the hotel to take a nap. That may have been a mistake. Even though Ava seemed to love her hair, she had a bit of a melt down about it after we left the boutique. I think she was just overly tired and couldn’t think of anything else to throw a fit about. She was saying that it hurt her head but then she ended up loving it the rest of the trip and didn't want to take it out. (She even asked me the other day if she could wear the hair piece to school!) Once she recovered from her meltdown, we took a snack break and rested in the park for a while. We headed to dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table for an early dinner. What a special birthday treat! We got to have (a steak!) dinner in the castle and meet all of the princesses. After dinner, we rode a few more rides then headed back to the hotel relatively early. We were all exhausted from the day of celebrations!

 

The BEFORE picture:

 

 

 

Macy's Makeover....

 

 

There was a prince and a queen hanging around the boutique. I don't know if they are actual characters from a movie or if they are just "royalty" that make the girls feel special while they're getting their makeovers.

 

Sprinkling her hair with glitter

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big Reveal......

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Ava's Makeover....

 

 

 

 

The meltdown.

I talked her into putting it up into a bun for the dinner with the princesses.

Every princess needs a pair of Giant Buzz Lightyear hands!

 

 

 

 

 

No idea what Macy is doing in this picture. Unfortunately our other Ariel pictures are blurry.

 

 

 

On Saturday we headed to Disney Hollywood Studios. After Magic Kingdom, everything else is kind of a let down but we still had fun. A lot of the Disney Jr. characters from the TV shows that they watch were at DHS. And we got to meet up with our good friends Chuck and Brooke Nalley and their kids Henry and Olivia. We have been friends with them for a very long time, but they live in Tampa now so we rarely get to see them. They just happened to have a weekend trip to Disney planned the same time we were there.  So fun! Also at DHS, Ava rode the Tower of Terror! It’s a super scary ride that takes you to the top of a tall “building” and drops you down super fast over and over. She rode it twice! Once with me and once with Ben. Macy didn’t want to do it. Macy is actually pretty scared of heights so she was definitely not up for Tower of Terror. We also had a character lunch where the girls got to meet some of the characters from Disney Jr. They met Handy Manny, Jake (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates), Agent Oso, and June (from Little Einsteins). The characters and staff did a special birthday song and dance for all of the kids celebrating a birthday which was cool. After lunch we took a break at the hotel. We headed back to DHS late that afternoon, rode a few rides then met up with the Nalleys for dinner. We saw Fantasmic which I LOVED. I thought it was one of the highlights of our trip. I highly recommend seeing it if you are in Disneyworld. After fantasmic, we headed back over to Magic Kingdom. The girls rode some of their favorite rides again and we wrapped up the night with a fireworks show.

Getting ready for Tower of Terror

All of the characters at lunch signed a birthday card for the girls. Ava is reading it while eating her ice cream.

 

 

 

 

This picture is blurry but we rode the teacups SO many times. It rarely had any lines so we could ride it OVER and OVER. Great....

 

Waiting on the bus. Too tired to even stand.

 

 

We spent our last day at Epcot. Epcot is a little more educational in nature and probably more enjoyable for adults than kids but I am still glad we went. We rode a few rides, spent some time with Mickey and friends, and had lunch.  After lunch, we went back to the hotel to rest. By this point in the trip, we were all WORN out and needing to rest! After resting, we took a ferry to the Beach Club Resort and had dinner at a yummy seafood restaurant. Our travel planner recommended this place and we were so glad we went. After dinner, we headed back to Epcot and toured the different countries. I loved this but I think it is hard for a 6 year old to appreciate. We saw Illuminations (Epcot’s laser and fireworks show) and then headed back to the hotel.

I didn't really capture the moment but Macy and Goofy are both pointing to their hats. Macy loves Goofy (not surprising) and he made a big deal about her Goofy hat.

Inside a shark's mouth!

 

 

This was in the hotel where we had dinner. It is a carousel made entirely of chocolate!

 

Catching the Ferry back to Epcot

 

 

Pretending to be a Viking in "Norway"

 

We didn't get to meet Elsa and Ana from Frozen. The line was WAY too long but we did see this little house that had some things from the movie and that showed what real life animals, people, etc. inspired the movie. (I know... not nearly as cool as meeting Elsa and Ana but we tried to talk it up to the girls so that we didn't have to wait in a 2 hour line!)

 

Fireworks!

 

No more princess hair. Just really sticky, tangly Ava hair.

 

Monday morning we packed up and headed to the airport. It was a quick, tiring, fun, magical trip. We had some trying moments but I am SO glad that we went and that the girls got to experience it. The girls are already saying, “When we go back to Disneyworld…..” 

Here is how they felt about leaving.....