Mimi's 2nd Birthday Party Trip Report **Updated 12/4** About This Page:

[akleos]

YES! We had a great time! YES! I am going to show you in pictures! So let's get right to it. And I'm going to begin with my favorite variety of photos: kids and characters!!! After that I'll get into the day-by-day details that I know you're just DYING to read about

Quick recap for those of you who need catching up:
AMY: That's me. I'm a Mom of two kids. Well, three if you count my husband, and yes, if I were you I would count him.
DAVE: Aforementioned husband with childlike characteristics.
ROO: The boy. He is 4 years old. Cute, talkative and affectionate when not having a boundary testing temper tantrum.
MIMI: The birthday girl. She turned two during our vacation and boy howdy did she love it! Mommy's girl.... or rather, Mommy's little Princess!!!

Dates: 9/24/08 - 10/6/08.
Date of Birthday Celebration: 9/29/08

Resorts: Port Orleans Riverside (originally), transferred during vacation to Wilderness Lodge (more to come on that fiasco later)

If you need any more of a recap, please check out my pre-trip report (you'll find the link below in my signature). I am not much for talky-talky trip reports, but I know there are a few parents planning bday parties who were interested in my plans and how they worked out. I'll keep my chit-chat to a minimum, but include essential details among the photos. Enjoy the pictures! We took nearly 2,000 of them, so there is quite a bit to sort through and resize. Very soon you'll be able to check out all my *new* no-family-just-park photos in my passporter photo gallery!
PassPorter Photos - akleos Gallery

[lissybri]

Great start. Glad Mimi had a great second birthday. Can't wait to read all about your trip and see your pictures.

[akleos]

So!!!! On our very first full day at the parks we visited Magic Kingdom so the kids could meet their favorite, Mr. Mickey Mouse. Mimi was gung-ho to meet him and I could barely hold her back from running in front of the line to give him hugs and kisses, but something, and we're not quite sure what, but something about this squeeze scared the living daylights out of her:



She darted away from Mickey whining and calling for me almost instantly and she refused to get close to the characters again for about a week:



But Roo was undeterred!!! I mean, this kid LOVES his characters! There isn't any character he won't meet, hug, kiss... or in the case of the Princesses, get kisses from! His favorites are Mickey, Pluto, Donald, Goofy, Chip and Dale, and JASMINE ( ooooohhhh Jasmine ). Here you see him relishing in the glory of meeting Mickey and Minnie.



I want to add here how wonderful the characters are with children. Children who are scared or apprehensive are treated warmly, and really gain an affection for the tenderness of the characters with time.

[goofysdtr]

Great start, Amy! The two photos of Mimi are funny! I'm guessing he just looked a bit different (read: bigger) than she anticipated.

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Amy

[akleos]

We didn't take any character pictures on the 26th since that was the day my Mother In Law joined us for the celebration, so we'll jump right to the 27th! We went to Disney Hollywood Studios and met Goofy and Pluto first thing in the morning with very little wait. Here is Roo in mad dash to hug The Goof:



I'm surprised that Goofy didn't fall over on impact - you can see how far Roo swung out on re-entry into character arms:



Here is Roo giving Pluto a high five. Yeah, you'll notice Mimi is absent from these photos. There was a lot of "nonono!"-ing coming from her when it came ot meet'n'greets:



A little later we went to The Magic of Disney Animation - which the kids loved! Don't pass it up... it looks unassuming on the outside, but packs a lot of laughs and character meet opportunities! They had Mickey in Sorcerer garb and The Incredibles there, along with the wall-E cut-out you'll see below!!!

Here is a very happy Roo with Mickey Mouse. He is all squished together because his ears kept getting knocked into his eyes by Mickey on accident. You can see the struggle to get Mimi in the picture of her own accord on the right:



Here she is - not wanting to go it alone:



Finally she gave in, but only with Daddy holding her a safe distance away:



And here they are - as close to all smiling and looking at the camera as I was going to get!!!



Now here is someone Mimi could never be afraid of: WALL-E!!! This girl loves Wall-E almost as much as she loves Mickey Mouse:



And here is Ronan loving his time with Wall-E away from his "stinky old baby little sister":

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures!!

[iamgrumpy]

Great Start!

[Artzkathy]

Great pictures!!! Can't wait to read/see more!

Kathy

[disney_duke]

So far so good!! Those pictures are great. Our DS (22mos) wasn't too sure about those characters at first either, but he loved them when he was 7 months old! Funny. Really looking forward to more pix!!!

[wayneava81]

Great start! Looking forward to more pics!

[bsblady01]

more please

[lazanya]

Great start!

[disneydani]

Glad you've started, Amy. Love the great pics of your adorable kiddos and the characters. Curious to hear about the fiasco...

danielle

[Diz]

Adorable!

Great shots!