Disney World - Magic Kingdom (Day 2)

We spent our last day at Disney World by going back for a second day at the Magic Kingdom.

When we first entered the park, we ran into Snow White and took a couple quick pictures while the pregnant lady scoped out the nearest restroom. Our girls decided that they wanted to meet Ariel, so we waited for them to meet her. Then we headed to Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, which is an interactive comedy show that is really amazing. An anamatronic Mike Wazowski hosts a comedy night where all of the different monster comedians actually interact with the audience. From there we rode Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (solid fun) and Stitch's Great Escape (not nearly as good as the old Alien Encounter).

We also saw Belle again at Storytime with Belle, a show where she recounts her story with audience participation. At the end, she invited everybody to line up to take pictures with her and pointed at us and said, "Line up right there." After a quick photo, we were off for more.

The highlight of the day was the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party. It is like a parade, but the floats come down and stop before doing a few songs and then inviting everybody to come into the street and dance. Lucy loved it! Leland was doing well, but it was so hot outside, that she just hit her wall and crashed in the stroller half way through. If you are wondering about the monkey backpack, it was the greatest thing for Lucy. She didn't always want to be in the stroller obviously, but she LOVED wearing the monkey. We could let her walk to her hearts content and not worry about her wandering off, which she would do if she wasn't leashed to someone or something.

Although we were exhausted, we had to take Lucy to see her favorite character - Peter Pan! After photos with Peter and Wendy, we headed back to the hotel for an early end to our day and a much deserved rest.

That night our family swam a little in the resort pool and walked around on the grounds while everyone else hit up another water park.

Other great pictures from the day:

Disney World - Blizzard Beach

We spent our Friday of Disney week at Blizzard Beach. We set up a base under a pavilion adjacent to the kids' area and had a fun day riding water slides. Although this was Chuck's favorite day and the girls' second favorite, it was difficult for my 8-month-pregnant wife. She was a trooper though and never complained.

We didn't take many pictures of the big rides because we couldn't carry our camera in the water. However, the PhotoPass photographers got some great ones of people coming down the rides.

Both Leland and Lucy loved the kids slides.There were various slides of different lengths, water pools and waterfalls, and even a kids' tube ride. The area was so well designed, that the kids were not at all afraid to go on the slides on their own. That resulted in some nervous parents when the kids would just run off to go play in the water. Luckily, everybody had brought life jackets and we all helped keep track of the kids.

All the kids had fun splashing around and playing with one another. Conner was playing around trying to float on his back and Lucy kept trying to "help" him up. She was being so funny.

Here are lots of pictures of the girls on the kids' slides. They seemed so big and grown up going down all by themselves.

At one point in the day Goofy strolled through the kids' area. He had a following of children then he stopped to take ONE picture and that was with our girls. The photo pass girl snapped it so quick the girls weren't looking and Lucy didn't get in her usual seated pose. A line quickly formed of other kids to take a pictures too, but he just walked away after their picture.

Leland really liked the big water slides where you rode on mats - Toboggan Racers and Snow Stormers. I cannot remember how, but early in the day Mitzi and I somehow ended up alone with the four oldest kids (Denim-5, Leland-4, Connor-4, and Tara-3) for what was the kids' first adult ride of the day. It was Toboggan Racers, where you have eight lanes for a "race" down on your mats, so naturally, you can't have one adult go ahead of the kids to catch them. I realized this conundrum while standing in line and began getting the kids really excited because "We get to ride on Aladdin's magic carpets in a race!" They bought it and Mitzi and I put one kid on each side of us and pushed them down before we started. Picture me, after having pushed Leland and Denim down the slide, then getting on my mat and pushing hard to slide down to catch up to them. Let's just say that my body mass generated enough speed to race past them before the first hump. The kids LOVED it and all jumped up screaming "AGAIN!" We did it and the other mat ride five times before we told them we needed to go rest.

Teamboat Springs, was a fun family tube ride for three of us. I convinced Ashley to come with us and she regretted letting me. The rest of us loved it. In our afternoon ride on Teamboat Springs, Leland and I joined the Hocks and I told them that we needed to lean into the curves and get going really fast. Well, Mike's leaning was not nearly as intense as mine, which resulted in us banging heads and my sunglasses splitting in half and flying into the air. Nobody was hurt, except for Lani busting her gut laughing at the two of us.

The waterpark closed at 5 PM, so we made the kids push through the day with no naps. They all handled it very well and we headed home at 4:30 PM wiped out after a fun day. That night, we enjoyed some takeout Pei Wei. One of the last times we ate food from Pei Wei was in CA and Ashley ended up in the ER to have her gall bladder removed. Luckily there were no visits to the ER this time.

Disney World - Hollywood Studios

Day 4 at Disney World meant our fourth park - Disney's Hollywood Studios. Unfortunately, we were later arriving at the park than we had planned. Chuck mentioned printing the touring plans each morning... Well that meant going into the business center of the hotel each morning with his jump drive. He had left his jump drive in a computer the day before, so when we went this morning to hopefully retrieve it, it was quite an ordeal. Let's just say the lost and found was kept on the complete opposite side of the property and the security personnel where not the brightest or most helpful in finding the correct item. After a 45 minute delay, we finally got his jump drive back and headed to the park.

They have this American Idol Experience where you can go through the process of a trying out for AI. There are even shows throughout the day. Chuck was a good sport and went to tryout because his sisters really wanted him to. He didn't get past the first tryout, and was relieved because it would have wasted his whole day at the park to do all the other parts.

Disney Playhouse was our favorite stop at California Adventure when we were in Disneyland in CA. I don't know if they have changed the one out there yet, but at DHS they used newer characters like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, the new Winnie the Pooh, and Handy Manny. It was great. My girls loved it. Afterward, they got to see some of the Little Einstein characters which they both adore.

Leland and Lucy with Leo, June, and Quincy from the Little Einsteins.

During that time, Chuck got to go on some fun adult rides - Tower of Terror and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. It was nice for him to get to do that since during the entire time we had annual passes to Disneyland, we never road on Space Mountain or Thunder Mountain because we always did kids' things. He loves Tower of Terror and did well at not talking about it in front of me because the pregnant lady couldn't go on them.

Voyage of the Little Mermaid show was a horrible waste of time. It was very disappointing that Chuck described as Disney's worst show ever. On the other hand, The Beauty and the Beast show was very good. We were able to get 2nd row seats due to preggo in the wheelchair, which I thought were great. While waiting for the show to start, Lucy entertained us with her best Daddy impersonation.

Most of our crew booked it out of Beauty and the Beast to make it to the Lights, Motors, Action Extreme Stunt show, which was on the complete opposite side of the park and began 10 minutes after the B&B show ended. I had to stop at the bathroom and, obviously, was not as fast as the others, so arrived a little late. I tried to call people in our group to find out where they were sitting in the huge stadium, but no one was answering their phone due to the crazy amounts of noise. I finally got a hold of Chuck, but couldn't really hear what he said. Luckily an usher who could see that I couldn't find my group told me exactly where the other 17 people wearing the same shirt as I was were sitting. Matching shirts do have benefits.

We also checked out the Studio Backlot Tour which is a guided tour about movie special effects.

Toy Story Mania! was the coolest ride of all week and the only real ride for kids at DHS. It is an interactive 3-D game where you go room to room stopping in front of midway-style games shooting your cannon. Since we were so late, we missed riding Toy Story with the rest of the family in the morning, but came back later to ride. Lucy was asleep in my arms when we got onto the game, then all of sudden woke up and grabbed the gun to start playing.

We went out to Chevy's again for dinner that night. This time with the Hock's and Conley's. They were impressed with Lucy's Mexican food eating skills - the girl can put down some serious chips & salsa and refried beans. We also celebrated Tiffany's birthday again with a sombrero.

Disney World - Magic Kingdom

Our third day at Disney World was spent at the Magic Kingdom. This was Leland's favorite day for two reasons - she got to see the princesses and it was familiar to her because it is very similar to Disneyland.

Before I report on our day, I want to put out a good word for the Unofficial Guide to Disney World. My mother, the world's greatest tourist and tour guide, purchased the book before coming and she read up on all the secrets of having a great trip (even during my law school graduation as documented in this picture). The best part of the book is their "patented, field-tested touring plans that save as much as four hours of standing in line in a single day." Each night, I would get online, put in which park we wanted to visit and the date and it would generate touring plans with instructions of what rides to do and when. We would print them out and and carry them with us each day. Thanks to these guides we hardly ever spent more than 10 minutes in any line all week long. If you are going to Disney, you need to buy this book.

For the Magic Kingdom, the Unofficial Guide has a touring plan entitled "Dumbo-or-Die," which is described as follows: "The Dumbo-or-Die Touring Plan for Parents with Small Children is an (in)famous single-day plan designed for parents who will withhold no sacrifice for the children. On the Dumbo-or-Die plans, adults generally stand around, sweat, wipe noses, pay for stuff, and watch the children enjoy themselves. It's great." Because we were going to spend two days in the Magic Kingdom, we were able to take the Dumbo-or-Die plan, add in some adult fun, and do it all in a more relaxed "southern style" as I like to describe it.

In the morning, we finished all of the children attractions in Fantasyland, including Dumbo, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Cinderella's Carousel, Peter Pan (Lucy's favorite), It's a Small World, and Snow White's Scary Adventures. The favorite to most of us was Mickey's PhilharMagic, a 12-minute 4D movie starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. 4D means the movie is in 3D, but then their are different entertaining gags, such as actual water shooting out from the seat in front of you when it happens on the screen.

Then we headed to Mickey's Toontown Fair where we saw Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Belle together. In the last few years, Disney has really figured out how to maximize these character experiences. Our family was part of a group of about 25 that was ushered into a room (come to find out there are three identical rooms) with all three princesses and the door was shut for us to each have time with the princesses.

After finishing the kids' adventures, we headed over to Adventureland. We stopped at one of my usual favorites, The Enchanted Tiki Room. WRONG! In one of Disney's poorer decisions, they have revised the classic great into a excruciating annoyance by giving "control" to Iago from Aladdin and Zazu from The Lion King who "are trying to spruce up the show." The result is poor songs that don't have any resemblance to the traditional perfection I used to love. Tiki Room was Leland's favorite at Disneyland and I think she was even disappointed. (These pictures are from Small World which both the girls loved.)

We then headed on to Splash Mountain. Leland was very excited that she was tall enough to do the big rides. At the very beginning of the ride, your log/boat rides past the big drop to get a good view of what is about to come. When one of the logs come down, Disney adds in some fake splashing for everybody to see. The splashes are completely random and aim in different ways. Well, the first log we saw resulted in a fake splash that got us fairly wet. After we all laughed for 10 seconds saying it was refreshing, the next log came down and their fake splash sent a tidal wave that completely soaked us. Not an inch of my or Leland's clothing was dry. Later, we watched and most logs don't get hit by any of the splashes and some get one splash, but we had two! The splashes prepared Leland and she loved the ride. I had prepared her for the drops throughout, but she was still nervous for the big final one. But she absolutely loved it afterwards. Getting wet was great because it seemed to re-energize Leland, who had been pretty worn out by then.

Next we rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I was amazed at how much Leland loved this one. I started a bit nervous because the lap bar didn't even come close to hitting her legs since she was sitting right next to me, her 260 lb. father. I held one arm around her waist the whole ride. Even though she was loving it and laughing so hard, when I took my arm off her waist at the end, when we were not quite to the station, she said, "Dad, don't let go okay?"

Out last ride before nap time was Pirates of the Caribbean.

That evening, when we came back we rode both Splash and Thunder twice before hitting the Haunted Mansion. We finished the day sitting in front of Cinderella's Castle to watch the fireworks. (Ashley took this picture with her cell phone. It ended up being the best picture we had of the fireworks.)