Disney Day 2 - Magic Kingdom

We were up bright and early on day 2 to head to Magic Kingdom. This involved doing JP's favorite thing the whole trip...ridding the BUS! He LOVED the bus. In fact, that first morning he cried when Paul made him get off! He talked nonstop about the bus and was so excited every time we got on.


We had breakfast reservations at Be Our Guest. I was really excited about this because last time we went to Disney we weren't able to get Be Our Guest reservations.  Since Be Our Guest is a quick service restaurant you can put your order in ahead of time and they bring it to your table once you arrive. I placed our order while we were waiting for the bus that morning. Once we got to the restaurant we picked out our seats and our food was delivered to our table. We chose to sit in the ballroom and the kids loved watching it "snow" out the window! (Side note: our reservations were for 8:05 and the park opened at 9. This is a great reservation time if you want to be in line for the rides before anyone else is in the park!)


We left breakfast right before the park opened. The carousel was already running and the kids were all excited to jump on and ride!




Afterwards we jumped in the line to meet Tiana and Rapunzel and were done with that by the time the Rainey group (my mom, dad, brother, and sister in law) made it back to where we were.







Our fast passes for the day were for Peter Pan's Flight, Enchanted Tales with Belle, and Under the Sea. Ruth, Ben and my dad had fast passes for Space Mountain instead of Under the Sea.



Enchanted Tales with Belle is one of my favorite things at Magic Kingdom, probably because Belle is my favorite princess! For those who haven't done this attraction, the kids in the audience (and some of the adults) act out the story of Beauty and the Beast. It's super cute! Ellie was picked to be Phillipe, Emmie was the wardrobe, and Ruthie and JP were salt and pepper shakers. JP wasn't so sure about the whole thing but he knew for sure that if his sisters had props he wanted one too!








Belle gave all the kids a bookmark when they took their picture with her. JP wanted a bookmark SO badly that he was willing to walk up to Belle to get one. So cute!


In between our fast passes we caught all the other rides. The big girls had never ridden a roller coaster before so the we took them on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Yeah, they were NOT roller coaster fans, especially Emmie. Another negative was Haunted Mansion. Emmie and Ruthie were not fans. Ellie however loved it! The kids loved all our fast pass rides and some other favorites were the Winnie the Pooh ride, the train (one of my favorite things to do when it gets hot and crowded in the middle of the afternoon!), Mickey's Philharmagic, and Buzz Lightyear (Paul's favorite!).

Disney does a great job providing entertainment while you're waiting in line. The Pooh ride has lots of fun activities for the kids!

JP was pretty much Gran's ride buddy...he always wanted to ride with her!

Dumbo ride

Loving the carousel!

Buzz Lightyear

This picture cracks me up every time I see it!

Hands down JP's favorite ride was It's a Small World. He loved it SO much! He sat with my mom most of the times that he rode it but she said he spent the whole ride patting her and then pointing things out.





We also ran into these cast members. They told the girls they were workers from Cinderella's castle. They talked to the kids for awhile and were pretty funny!



Ben and Ruth were the only ones brave (crazy?) enough to go on the Teacups with Emmie and Ellie. The girls LOVED it.



In the afternoon Ben and Ruth park hopped to Animal Kingdom to do Expedition Everest and the Safari.

My dad had a late afternoon meeting he had to go to (he was actually down there for a conference for work...we found out after we booked that he and my mom would be there the same week we were!). Before everyone split up we managed to get a group picture.

Our afternoon included the Soak n Splash station, a train ride, and the Tomorrowland Speedway with the girls. Emmie drove Ellie and I around (she's an easily distracted driver by the way) and my mom drove Ruthie. (Ruthie didn't want to drive because she was pretty sure she wouldn't be a good driver!) JP and Paul did another loop around the park on the train while we did the Speedway.




We grabbed a (somewhat) shady spot while we were waiting for Ben and Ruth to get back from Animal Kingdom and as we were sitting there we heard parade music coming from the castle area. Emmie had really been wanting to see a parade so we headed over and managed to grab a great spot in front of the castle. The kids had a great time dancing in the parade!







Once we had all met back up (except for my dad...that whole work thing really gets in the way of fun) we headed to dinner at Crystal Palace with Pooh and friends.

















When we left dinner Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party was going on so we were able to see the park lit up for Halloween!




We arrived back at Caribbean Beach to find that all our friends had been well taken care of while we were gone!

Disney Day 1 - Friday/Saturday

Our original plan for Disney was to drive the whole way on Saturaday, September 16. However with Irma coming through the week before our trip we were worried about traffic on 95 so we decided to go half way Friday night. I am SO glad we decided to do this! We had almost zero traffic either day and it was really nice to split the trip up. We left just before dinnertime on Friday and I fixed sandwiches for the car and we picked Paul up at his office on our way out of town.

Dinner in the car...ready to go!

We stayed in Kingsland, GA that night which is about at the Georgia-Florida line. We stayed at a Comfort Suites and our room was the perfect set up. We had 2 queen beds, a pull out sofa, and a slightly seperated area where JP's pack n play fit. They also had a continental breakfast in the morning which is always nice! Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast, and headed on to Disney!

We made it!

We arrived in Orlando around lunchtime and once we made it through Jacksonville without any traffic issues I went ahead and made a lunch reservation. We ate lunch at the Whispering Canyon Café at Disney's Ft. Wilderness Lodge. I had only heard about this restaurant right before our trip and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to eat there! There are lots of lists on the internet about things to ask your server and funny things they will do. For instance, if you ask for a straw they throw a handful of straws on your table. When you ask for ketchup they make you shout that you need ketchup and then you get all the ketchup in the restaurant brought to you by other patrons! When Emmie said she needed more water I told her to ask for a large glass of water. And they bring you a LARGE glass! In addition to the entertainment, the food was excellent!

We explored Ft. Wilderness Lodge before lunch.

Whispering Canyon Café had a great waiting area for the kids!

Emmie's large glass of water!

ALL the ketchup!

After we finished lunch we checked into our resort. We stayed at Caribbean Beach. (I'll have more details about the resort in another post.) The room set up was great as we had 2 queen beds, a pull out single bed and an excellent space in the bathroom for the pack in play (JP's "special room"!).


We got all settled in our resort and we had some extra time so I took the girls to the pool to play while JP and Paul took naps. We had fun exploring all the slides and other fun things the pool had to offer!




We came back to the room in time to shower and get ready to go have dinner at the Grand Floridian. We stopped and picked up our strollers at the check in area on our way out of the resort and then headed to Grand Floridian. We ate at 1900 Park Fare. They have a dinnertime character meal with Cinderella, Prince Charming, the Stepsisters, and the Stepmother. The characters are all so wonderful and play their parts perfectly and we all really enjoyed it. JP got a little upset when taking a picture with one of the stepsisters and he ended up with a big kiss on his check...he wore that lipstick mark proudly all night!

Cinderella and Prince Charming dancing.

Cinderella's glass slipper

After we finished eating we headed out to the lawn of the Grand Floridian. Our plan was to sit and watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks. We were out there a bit early so we sat and watched the beginning of The Lion King which they were showing on the lawn.

Then the kids got a BIG surprise right before the fireworks started! We hadn't told them that Gran, Grandaddy, Uncle Ben, and Aunt Ruth were all coming to Disney with us so they snuck up behind them and surprised them. (It worked out really well because they were all staying at Grand Floridian) The kids were SO excited and Ellie put it perfectly when she said "dreams really do come true!"
(Sorry, the video is hard to see and hear because it's dark and there was a movie playing in the background.)


We all headed down to the ferry dock to watch the fireworks and the electric parade before heading back to our resort to rest up before our big first day at the parks!






The whole day was fun but all the kids agreed that the very best part was their surprise visitors!