The Dolleys Do Disney...June 20-27 - UPDATED 7/1 About This Page:

[5SOXFNZ]

I packed mostly everything the night before, just had to throw the last minute stuff in the bags this morning.

Jacob was up and dressed at 6:30am, just waiting for the rest of us to be ready. I woke up early to get lunches packed for the plane trip and reconfirm everything. Meghan woke up, got dressed and started walking around the house picking up everything she could find and saying “Mom, do you need me to throw this in the suitcase?” “Um, no Meg, we’re all packed and I don’t see any need for a paper airplane book at Disney World!” Ian ate his breakfast faster than I’ve ever seen because we told him we would go to the airport after breakfast.

Our neighbor, Jared, came across the street about 9am to help us load the car. He drove us to the sirport and then brought our car home for us. This was the easiest way so we wouldn’t have to worry about a cab or car seats in someone else’s car.

We arrived at MHT about 9:45am checked our luggage at the curb (We ended up with 2 large suitcases that had room in each, and one small rolling case, Jacob, Meghan and I each had a backpack and Kevin had his laptop bag. We had one more carryon that had clothes for one day, pj’s and bathing suits for everyone. ) We breezed through security and were at the gate in no time. Kevin went off in search of a coffee while I stayed with the kids. The big deal at the airport was that we got to fly on Southwest Airline’s Shamu plane! The kids thought that was the best!

The flight was very uneventful…non-stop so it was crowded. After take off the kids ate lunch then the older kids played their Nintendo DS’s and Ian watched Fantasia. Before we knew it we were landing in MCO! DME was painless…walked right to the bus line and were shortly on a bus. We stopped at Pop Century and let off a few people then headed to CBR.

We had done online check-in so I went in and walked right up to the counter. Everything was ready but there was one “problem”. The one request we ‘really’ wanted was the first floor room, we didn’t want to have to carry Ian and the carriage up /down the stairs every day. They had assigned us a room in Martinique (Preferred location, even though we only booked standard). When I asked about 1st floor the CM went off to see what he could do. He came back and said he had one but we would be “way over in Aruba” (his words) I asked Kevin and he agreed that the 1st floor was more important, so we took it. We were in building 52. We took the internal shuttle and were pleased when we arrived to find it was also a corner room!

We dropped our stuff, let the kids look around a but, called and waited for our groceries then headed out to DTD. We arrived there in time to hoof it over to Raglan Road (we did not know there were two stops in DTD so we got off the first stop and had to make our way through the marketplace to the restaurant. We arrived about 5:30pm and were seated almost immediately. The food and décor were great but I was not wowed at all by the service. It still didn’t seem like we were at Disney!

Kid's dessert Sundea

After Dinner we browsed around a bit (The Lego store of course! But it was a mad house so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time in there!) Took pictures with the princesses...
We made out way over to World of Toys and the Make Your Own Light Saber display! Jacob and Kevin handled the complexities of building “just the right weapon” while Meghan, Ian and I headed to the My Little Pony display! I must say…I was very proud of my little girl, she managed to fit every single outfit, a bed AND a pony in that box! (We had forgotten to pack her pony from home so when we saw she had room she stuffed a new one in! )

Purchases in hand we headed back to CBR to get to bed…we had an early morning on Sunday to make rope drop at the MK!

UP NEXT….Father’s Day at the MK!

[disney_duke]

The Shamu plane!! Wow, that must have been awesome for the kids. Heck, I'd like to be on that once! Great start. I'm curious to hear how you liked being in the Aruba section as I'm planning on requesting that for my solo trip. So far, so good!!

[5SOXFNZ]

We got an early start this morning. I went over to Old Port Royale and got Kevin coffee and a hot breakfast for his Father’s Day “breakfast in bed”. The kids and I had cereal and juice in the room and gave Kevin his Father's Da cards. Everyone was dressed and ready to go. We caught the bus to Magic Kingdom and arrived just in time for the opening ceremonies in front of the Main Street train station. I’d never seem it before so it was neat to be there in time!

Kevin and Ian watchin Mickey drive in on the train!

We headed right to Fantasyland and continued what is now a family tradition of always riding Dumbo first.

I rode with Meghan and Kevin took the boys! They all loved it. From there we hit Peter Pan, it’s a small world, Cinderella’s Carousel, Snow White and then the Tea Cups. We stopped for a wish in Cinderells'a Fountain...

It was getting to be lunch time so we grabbed Fast Passes to Winnie the Pooh then headed to Cosmic Rays for lunch. It was good timing because moments after we arrived and got our food the throngs of people started to arrive and the place got busy. We finished our lunches and headed back over to Pooh. Ian giggled the whole way through this ride! It was great! I think the longest line we encountered all morning was about 15 minutes. Pretty good considering it’s the busy season!

We decided it was time to head back to the hotel for a rest so we went and caught the bus back to CBR. As we headed out of the park we ran into the Move it Shake it Celebration on Main Street and stopped to watch for a couple of minutes.

Ian had a rough time settling down but once he did he was out like a light. I made Meg and Jacob lay down for a bit (more to get Ian to calm down) and Meg fell asleep too! Jacob and I headed to the pool at Aruba for a quick dip. Man, the water was like a hot tub it was so warm, not really the “refreshing” dip I was looking forward to! Meg woke up a little bit later and joined us at the pool while Kevin stayed with Ian. The kids and I decided to go over and check out the “big pool” and found the kid’s splash area! So cool! I curled up in the one corner of shade I could find (Irish skin ya know!!) and they ran around and played for about a 1/2 hour.


We headed back to the park an arrived just in time to head to Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner! Great meal! It was like Thanksgiving with no cooking or cleaning! Family style meal with all the fixings (althought cranberry sauce was missing and very much missed by Jacob) They sprinkled glitter on our table when we arrived and when dessert came out the brought Kevin a special cupcake and sang to him! (We had noted this as his birthday celebration on the ADR)


After dinner we hit the Haunted Mansion then headed to Frontierland to do “the mountains” We grabbed Fast Passes for Thunder Mountain. and waited in line for Splash Mountain. Kevin took Jacob and Meghan on (the wait was about 45-50 minutes) but then with the rider swap I was able to walk right on with Meg after the came back. One trip was enough for Jake but we were so proud of him for doing it to begin with! When we got off Splash Mountain the kids said they wanted to skip Thunder Mountain tonight and head back to the hotel (we passed on our ripe Fast Passes to another group). We tried to get out but then got trapped in Frontierland by SpectroMagic. Of course, we couldn’t really see it, but we couldn’t get around it either so it was just annoying!

Finally we got out to Main Street as Wishes started. We explained to the kids that we would be back another day this week to watch it and hurried out to the busses. We got the end of Main street, in front of the train station just in time for me to turn Meg around and watch Tinkerbell fly from the castle! As we walked out she said “I made the same wish twice today, in the Cinderella fountain and in the water at it’s a small world and it came true” Jacob said “Oh yeah, what was your wish?” and she answered “That we would have the best vacation ever!” (I swear, I didn’t make that up!! It made me tear up!!)

We got back to the room, the kids finally settled down to sleep, and Kevin ran to refill out resort mugs at the “free” drink station across the Cay.

Phew...my first day at Disney World was a doozie!!!

Tomorrow we go to Epcot!

[5SOXFNZ]

Originally Posted by disney_duke

The Shamu plane!! Wow, that must have been awesome for the kids. Heck, I'd like to be on that once! Great start. I'm curious to hear how you liked being in the Aruba section as I'm planning on requesting that for my solo trip. So far, so good!!

Tanya,
We really like Aruba. Our building (#52) seemed to be smack dab in the middle of the Aruba section, close to the "quiet" pool (And I put that in quotes because trust me, it's not quiet, although we couldn't hear the noise in our room!!) The bus stop was a little further than I would have liked but it was a simple walk ove to OPR across the bridge. We moved to Barbados for our last night (more on that later) and I definately would not stay there again, I felt it wasn't close to anything in the resort, although our room there was close to the bus stop, you would need to take the bus even to get to OPR. The only place you could really walk to was the Custom House...and who need to walk there unless your checking in or out????!!!

[5SOXFNZ]

We let the kids wake on their own schedule today. They were all awake by 8sh. We ate breakfast in the room and headed over to Epcot. We didn’t get into the park until about 10am (much to my dismay!). We ran into Stitch just after the turnstiles and stopped for a picture.

We headed for The Seas, did the ride, then explored a bit. From there we went and got Soarin’ Fast Passes, return time was 5:42, which was perfect because we had a 6pm reservation at Garden grill in the Land.
We wandered around a bit, the kids wanted mister fans so we had to hunt those down, Meghan wanted a hat and Jacob wanted the Hidden Mickey book (I was surprised how into the hidden Mickeys he got, I was so happy to have someone to search for them with!!)

We headed over to Imagination and did he ride there.
By now it was lunchtime. I don’t know if it was the heat or what but I found the people in Epcot to just be rude! It was weird, people just walking over kids, bumping into you, no one smiling UGH! I was not impressed with Epcot on this day (which is sad because I do love this park!) We decided to go to Electric Umbrella for lunch (normally I would go for Sunshine Seasons in The Land but since we were eating dinner there we opted for something different!) Poor little Ian was so hot he fell asleep right at the table at lunch!Then we headed to Test Track with the intention of picking up fastpasses but the kids were getting tired and cranky and decided they did not want to ride. Kevin had riden this one back in ‘03 when I was pregnant and couldn’t ride so he told me to go on the single rider line and he would wait with the kids! Glad I did, it’s a cool ride!

We found Frozen cokes at this point in our trip...actually, it was a Minute Maid Raspberry Lemonade one...it became a favorite of all 5 of us on this trip! (You can see we all have one in our hands in the monerail pic below!!)

After Test Track we headed out to the monerail and rook a nice air conditioned ride. We went from Epcot to the TTC then hopped on the resort loop then back to Epcot. The kids really enjoyed that, although Jacob left his red Sox hat on one train and Meghan left her sunglasses on another! (We were able to get the hat back a couple of days later but we replaced the $2 sunglasses!!) Once back in the park we went on Spaceship Earth.


Then it was time to head to The Land. We did Living with the Land (wanted to do that before dinner so the kids could see where the vegies were grown for our dinner) then the plan was to do Soarin’ but We didn’t have time so we decided to wait until after dinner.

Garden Grill was great. Our server was awesome, and Mickey was there!! The kids liked the food, and the character interaction was good (Chip, Dale, Pluto and Mickey) I had arranged earlier in the day (when I popped in to get the FP’s for Saorin’) for the kids to get the surprise Celebration favor bags. They were cute and the kids really enjoyed them. (For $9.99 you get the canvas bag, a paper celebration hat, crayons, a coloring book, a matching game, and a cool magnet set and board to play with them on!)
They sang and brought Jacob a cupcake and a card signed by all the characters there and our server. (Birthday Celebration noted on the ADR)




After dinner we headed right to Soarin’. We planned to do the rider swap and I took the two older kids on first while Kevin stayed with Ian. as soon as we left the ground both kids said “I’m not doing this again!” but by the time we “landed” they both were in agreement that they wanted to ride it ASAP with daddy! I waited with Ian while they rode.

We headed out to the hotel after that because we were all hot (It hot over 100 degrees in Orlando that day!!) and wanted to get in a swim. We were in the pool until about 11pm then headed to bed!

Tomorrow we head to Animal Kingdom!
　

[disneydreamer33]

How awesome for the kids to get to ride the Shamu plane.
Sounded like a great day at MK. You got a lot done.
Epcot sounded good other than the rude people. Glad you like Garden Grill. We are eating there in Sept. I didn't think they had characters anymore. That is good to know. The girls will be excited.
More please.

[elisa1006]

Great first few days! Can't wait for more!!!

[Cam22]

What great updates from your first three days! You all packed loads of fun into each day.

[Lemap760]

If we ever stay at CBR I'm never going to be able to get my son out of that pool. LOL

[ArielsMomto2]

Wow, great days in MK and Epcot. Sounds like you had an amazing time. The kids look so cute in their matching t-shirts. They do look really hot though. I remember our first trip in June and it was so hot. Sounds like the crowds weren't to bad though. Hurry back. Can't wait to hear more.

[KMB733]

What a great start to your vacation! I kept up with most of your goings on with your blog. Great pictures too!

[triddle67]

Wow! It sounds like you had a full day. I don't know if I would have been able to handle 100 + the humidity. It gets over 100 here, but "it's a dry heat".lol

[bsblady01]

more please

[Colexis Mom]

What great updates! ! Love the pictures! Glad you're all having a great time!!

[pparm]

What a great trip you are having. Can't wait to read more. Your kids are adorable!

Paula