We had a GREAT week in Orlando! Our hotel, The Gaylord Palms Resort, was amazing (Thank you Hotwire)! The entire hotel is decorated for the holidays...lights, trees, and more poinsettias than I have ever seen in my entire life! There is a pond with live alligators and turtles and a sailboat in one of the lobbies!! We didn't even see 1/2 of the hotel in the week that we were there.
We arrived on Monday afternoon and went directly to the kid's pool. The area included a zero-entry pool with a huge octopus water slide in the middle. I would say that Allie and Ryan went down the slide AT LEAST 50 times...EACH!
On Tuesday morning, we woke up early and drove directly to the Magic Kingdom. The park opened at 8 and we probably snapped this picture at about 8:15!
We were told that this was one of the busiest weeks at the Disney parks but we didn't think it was too bad. From 8-11ish, the park was not crowded at all. Neil was the king of the RastPass. We were able to grab those for most of the popular rides. We waited less than 5 minutes to get on Peter Pan while the regular line was at 75 minutes!! We also rode Buzz 2x, Dumbo, It's a Small World, Snow White, Aladdin's Magic Carpets, and the Speedway. Allie and Ryan are too vertically challenged for the bigger rides, which is a good thing. The wait for Space Mountain was 2 hours!
We headed back to the hotel around noon for lunch, rest, and a little time in the pool. We were back at MK by 4pm. We went on a few more rides and saw my favorite show of the entire trip, Mickey's Philharmagic. It's a 3D show based on Donald Duck chasing Mickey's sorcerer hat. Donald chases the hat through scenes from The Lion King, Peter Pan, The Little Mermaid, and other Disney films. Everyone loved it! After a quick dinner, we lucked into a front row spot for the SpectroMagic parade at 7pm. The parade was magical. The floats were covered with lights and we saw TONS of characters. We caught the fireworks from the parking lot on our way home...well, Allie saw them. Ryan was passed out on my shoulder!
On Wednesday morning, we drove to Disney's Blizzard Beach. This is one of the water parks and it's supposed to look like a ski resort in the middle of Florida. I thought the kids would be timid about the big slides...um, not so much! Ryan held on to the mat and went down 'luge style' on this big twisting slide that dropped into a 4-foot pool of water! (I am waiting on the pictures from our underwater camera!) We rode the ski lift up to the top of the mountain which was fun. I liked this much more than my actual skiing experiences...ha ha. The park also had a great kid's area with pint-size water slides. We camped there for about 2 hours during which I don't think either of the kids were ever out of the water (see Allie's pruned fingers!)
For New Year's Eve, we went to Celebration, FL. This is a master-planned community created by Disney in the early 90s. I remember when I first drove by it in 1996. It was sort of creepy...like the movie 'Pleasantville'. As the town has grown, Disney has relinquished control and it's a nice community. There is a cute town square and we managed to snag a great outdoor table in the 'Boston Garden' of the Town Tavern. Allie and Ryan enjoyed the area of bounce houses, jumping and sliding over and over again. We also found out that we are raising two future American Gladiators as Allie and Ryan faced off in the Joust! They had everyone laughing (I will upload some video too). We were all home and in bed by 9pm! Happy New Year!
On Thursday, we decided to go to Disney's Hollywood Studios. This park ecompasses many of the movie and TV projects of Disney. Now, we had decided at Magic Kingdom that we did not want to spend a lot of time waiting in line to meet characters (the line to meet Tinker Bell was 90 minutes long!!!). At Hollywood Studios, there were characters EVERYWHERE and the lines were 10 minutes long or less! Ryan was in awe of the Power Rangers (we had to meet and pose with each one). Buzz and Woody were a big hit too! The Toy Story Mania 3D ride was pretty cool (thanks again to Neil, master of the fast pass. no waiting!). We saw several shows including the Star Wars Jedi Training. Allie was selected from the audience to train with the Jedi Master. She was adorable! She even faced Darth Vader! If you ask her, she'll tell you 'I'm a Jedi now. I didn't go to the dark side. I stayed with my Jedi Master!'. Too funny!
We had three long-days of park hopping but it was well worth it! Allie and Ryan understood and appreciated so much more than on our first trip to Disneyland (back in 2006). It is incredible to experience Disney with them after all of my own trips as a child and young adult.
I will end with a picture of Ryan on his favorite ride...the huge revolving door at the hotel. It had two small display windows and one included a small gold reindeer. Ryan said 'Mommy, that reindeer just stays in the door ALL DAY!'.
And video of the JOUST:
As our guest, we let Maggie pick a movie and she picked Barbie Diamond Castle. I'm still hearing them sing the theme song in unison!
(The girls are always very good to Ryan. He was feeling sad that he would be left out of the sleep-over but they made sure to include him right up until bedtime.)
(Note: The scratch on his face is the result of a playground scuffle over the see-saw. I think it adds to his 'tough' look. And every superhero needs his BUNNY...a tough guy with a soft side!)
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