Epcot

On the last day of our vacation, we went to Epcot. The weather was terrible on this day. There were tornado warnings in the Orlando area all morning, so we didn't dare leave the hotel until after noon. We were hoping that the rain would die down some in the afternoon. It didn't. Thankfully, we had purchased rain ponchos on our first day. We certainly got our money's worth out of them during our stay. Due to the weather and the late start, we were only able to see about a quarter of the park. We didn't even go into the "World Showcase" section of Epcot except to eat. Instead, we concentrated on three pavilions in the "Future World" section- those being the Seas, the Imagination, and the Land pavilions. I was a little disappointed because I was really looking forward to going through the World Showcase, to checking out the garden festival, and to riding Test Track. Oh well, I guess now I have a good excuse to go back. We did have a good time in the pavilions that we visited. Olivia was tall enough to ride Soarin, and she loved that. Owen really liked the aquarium and the "Turtle Talk with Crush" show. My favorite moment of the whole trip actually happened at Epcot, but I'm saving that because it was awesome and deserves its own post.

Rainforest Cafe

Seeing as how I booked Cinderella's Royal Table for Olivia, I figured that it was only fair to book a meal that was catered to Owen's interests. After considering several places, I choose the Rainforest Cafe at Animal Kingdom. Owen loves animals, and this restaurant certainly played on that theme. The restaurant uses robots and elaborate themeing to create the feeling of being in a rainforest. Owen loved it. We were seated right next to a fish tank and not too far from a robotic elephant. We also had a robotic monkey hanging right above us who went crazy every time there was a rainstorm. The restaurant was loud and there was a lot going on at all times, but it was fun. At the end of the meal, Granny Mel ordered an ice cream and chocolate "volcano" for dessert (with six spoons, of course). It was delicious. Here are some pictures from the restaurant.

Animal Kingdom

I'm just going to come right out and say it, I am a HUGE fan of Disney's Animal Kingdom. It could possibly be my favorite of all the Disney parks. We spent the only sunny day of our vacation at this park. It could not have been more perfect. We arrived prior to rope drop, and so we had a front-row seat for the "Let the Adventure Begin" show. In this "show", Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto drive up on a truck and do a little skit about how much fun everyone is about to have. The kids loved seeing the characters and waved at them for the duration of the skit. Once the truck pulled away, the rope was dropped, and we headed straight to the best ride in the park- Kilimanjaro Safaris. We were on one of the first safari vehicles to pull out, and we saw all sorts of animals- including rhinos, cheetahs, lions, hippos, elephants, and giraffes. Some got amazingly close to the safari truck. We had heard that it is best to do this ride in the morning while it is still cool because that's when the animals are most active. Whomever gave us that piece of advice was absolutely right. The animals were up and at'em. While at Animal Kingdom, we rode many rides (including the Expedition Everest coaster), saw two fantastic shows, and met many characters. Although the entire day was great, the highlight for me occurred during the "Festival of the Lion King" performance when Olivia was chosen to be in the show. She and a few other kids got to walk around shaking some type of maraca-like instrument while the entire cast of the show sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". We tried to get pictures of this, but the lighting was all wrong. We did get a very short video clip of her role in the show, and it is at the bottom of the post. We ended up spending the entire day at the park, and we were exhausted that night. But, it was so... worth it.

Cinderella's Royal Table

Our second day at Magic Kingdom began with a breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table (located inside of Cinderella's castle). It took a lot of work to book this breakfast. I tried daily for weeks to get a table before I was successful- and this was several months in advance. The food was just okay, but we didn't come for the food. We came for the princesses! Olivia is really "into" the Disney princesses, and she was so excited to get a chance to eat with Cinderella inside of the castle. The "experience" began with a personal audience with Cinderella herself. Cinderella was beautiful, gracious, and everything that a princess should be. After our encounter with royality, we proceeded to our table and began our meal. As we ate, different princess were introduced and began making their rounds. We were visited to by Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, and Belle. You could really tell that the princesses were well-versed in engaging the children. Even though all of the princesses were great, Sleeping Beauty said the most perfect thing to Olivia. She told Olivia that she thought they looked alike. This comment brought the biggest smile to Olivia's face. After we had been visited by the princesses, the children were invited to participate in a wishing ceremony. All of the kids were given "wishing stars" so that they could participate. The girls were also given wands while the boys received swords. All of the kids were told to raise their wands/swords, close their eyes, and make a wish. At that point, the lights flickered throughout the room. I guess that means the wishes were granted. Here are some pictures of the various Disney princesses with my own little princess and prince.

The Magic Kingdom

While at Disney, we spent two wonderful days inside of the Magic Kingdom. We hit the park early on our first day. Actually, we arrived before park opening on both of the days that we visited, and so we were able to see the "welcome" show twice. Seeing the characters sing and dance before we even entered the park definitely got the kids into the right mood. They were so--- excited! On our first day inside the Magic Kingdom, we got in quickly and headed straight to Tommorrowland. We rode all of the rides (that we wanted to ride) in this area in about an hour and a half. I'm not kidding. The weather kept the crowds light and the lines short all through our stay. I don't think that we waited more than 5 minutes to ride anything all week long. I was so amazed by how smoothly things went. Brian and I decided to ride Space Mountain, and we walked directly onto the coaster with absolutely no wait. I couldn't believe it- I remember being a kid and waiting for hours to ride that ride. As we were coming off Space Mountain, we saw Mickey Mouse standing in the location that we were planning to rendezvous with Granny Mel and the kids (who were riding the People Mover while we were on Space Mountain). We got our picture made with Mickey- no wait. Wow, could our whole trip possibly go like this?

Once we finished riding the rides in Tommorrowland, we proceeded to Fantasyland. Here, we also encountered a surprising lack of wait time. We rode every single ride in Fantasyland (except for Dumbo) and were done by eleven o'clock. The kids loved the rides in this area. I think that "It's a Small World" was Owen's favorite ride in the whole park. We ended up riding it twice. I liked the Pooh ride. Did you know that in the books, Pooh's house has the name Sanders above the door? -Just an interesting bit of trivia- After knocking out Fantasyland, we got a quick bite to eat. The rain turned from light sprinkle to moderate shower as we ate, so we decided to call it an early day.

When we returned to the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday, we headed straight for Dumbo- which was the only ride in Fantasyland that we didn't get to ride on the first day. After riding it, we went off to conquer Liberty Square, Frontierland, and Adventureland. Olivia was tall enough to ride Thunder Mountain and Spalsh Mountain, and she loved them both. Thunder Mountain was her first "big" coaster, and we were curious to see how well she'd do. Well, not only did she LOVE it, but she kept her hands up the entire time. She's definitely a rider! Olivia liked the coaster so much, in fact, that we ended up riding it a second time. Once again, the crowds were light, and we were able to ride everything that we wanted to ride by two o'clock. We returned to the hotel for a mid-day break and then went back to the Magic Kingdom that night. We ate dinner at Tony's, a Lady and the Tramp themed Italian restaurant that had been highly praised by the Qs. The food was fantastic, and the kids loved the theming- especially since we were staying right next to "Lady" and "Tramp" at our hotel. After eating, we saw the new night show, "The Magic, the Memories, and You" (AWESOME), and the "Wishes" fireworks show. It made for a late night, but it was worth it! I would say that we certainly experienced the "magic" of the Magic Kingdom during our trip.

Downtown Disney

The first thing that we did after checking into the hotel was to take the bus to Downtown Disney to get the souvenir necessities- like mouse ears, Christmas ornaments, and pins for the kids' lanyards. Owen and Olivia had also received money from Poppy and Nana to spend at Disney, and it was burning a hole in their pockets. Even though they would like to have blown it all on the first day, we made them hold on to some of it in case they saw something they really wanted later in the week. The kids loved the Downtown Disney area because there was so much to see and do. Some of their favorite things were spotting the Disney statues, looking at the Lego dragon, and trying on the different hats in the stores. I enjoyed just walking around and looking in all of the different shops. Even Brian, who is usually a staunch opponent of any form of shopping, had a good time. One thing that we saw was a lady performing as a "living statue". She was cool, so I had to get my picture made with her. After shopping for a couple of hours, it was time to eat. We had reservations at The House of Blues, and the food was phenomenal. After dinner, Papa Charlie treated everyone to ice cream at Haagen-Dazs. Yum.

The kids had some money left over on the last day of vacation, so we took them back to Downtown Disney to finish it off. Olivia ended up with three princess dolls (one from Granny Mel), a playset, and two vinylmation figurines. Owen chose two playsets, four vinylmation figurines, and two Star Wars Disney dolls. Granny Mel also got Owen a Mr. Potato Head set. This was a really cool gift. The deal was, you picked a giant hollow potato head and stuffed it with different pieces. There was a fixed price, so you could get as much as you could stuff into your potato head. Brian saw this as a challenge that could not be passed up and he set out to have the most well-stuffed potato head ever. I was amazed at how much he was able to put in that thing. Even the sales ladies were amazed, and they stopped what they were doing to come over and check out Brian's stuffing ability. I thought this was a unique gift because a lot of the potato head pieces were Disney-specific (like Tinkerbell hair, mouse ears, and Donald Duck lips).

Spanning the Decades at Disney

This past week was spring break, and we went to Disney for a much-needed vacation. Knowing that Disney is a BEAST, I planned our vacation out to a T. I read all of the former blog posts from you guys who have been to Disney lately (thanks guys) and I did all sorts of research. My plan was perfect. And then...to quote the song from Winnie the Pooh... "the rain rain rain came down down down". We're not just talking light sprinkle- we're talking thunderstorms and tornado warnings. Oh, well. We still had a great vacation despite less than perfect weather conditions. The next few posts will give a full report of our trip. It may take me awhile to get them all done because I'm waiting on my Photopass CD to get here before I post pictures from inside the parks. That being said, here we go... The resort that we stayed at was Disney's Pop Century Resort. The resort was themed based on pop culture icons from the 1950s-1990s. Each individual set of buildings had a designated "decade". The buildings were decorated with large sculptures of Disney pop culture icons and sayings from the different decades. Whenever you walked through a certain "decade" area, you'd here music from that decade played on speakers. We were in the 1950s area, so we heard lots of doo-whop and early rock-n-roll during our stay. The Disney sculptures that were in our area were from the movie Lady and the Tramp. Our room was right beside Lady and faced the "Bowling Pool" (which was shaped like a huge bowling pin). Due to the weather, though, we were only able to enjoy the pool on one afternoon.

The big sculptures were a hit with the kids, and we visited some of the other "decade" buildings to check out their pop icons. It wasn't just the music and the decorations that made this resort so cool, though. The theming even extended into the menu of the resort dining hall where the featured desert was tie-dyed cheesecake. Brian and I had to have a slice of that! There were also certain times during the day where all of the cast members in the main building would break out into a designated dance from a bygone era. One night, for example, we were eating in the resort cafeteria when a voice came over the loudspeaker saying that it was six o'clock and that all guests were invited to join the cast members in doing The Hustle. I had no clue how to do "The Hustle", but I grabbed the kids and we ran out to the middle of the make-shift dance floor and learned. Well, most of us learned- Owen seemed to just spin in circles more than anything. Once the song was over, the kids received a button that read"I Had a Poppin Good Time Doing The Hustle". Another morning, we were waiting on the bus, and the same voice came over the loudspeaker and invited us to do The Twist. It's true that the resort was tacky in places and the overall theme was a bit kitschy; but for our kids, it was perfect.