Monday, January 3, 2011

Disney: Part 1

We took a family vacation to DisneyWorld recently.  We had saved up to do it for quite some time.  Greg had a work year from "you know where" a while back, and our incentive to make it through that in one piece was that we would save up and treat ourselves to a special vacation. 
   
 As the time to leave approached, it seemed the entire world around us was falling to the stomach flu and other various illnesses.  I was totally anxious about it, especially when we arrived at the airport on departure day to discover Sophie had a fever.
 We had a near-puking incident en route, but we made it through without having to use the the bag so conveniently placed in the seat pocket before us.  And then we all were fairly healthy throughout the rest of the trip. Whew!


We arrived!

 The kids got new Disney shirts on our first day.  I had purchased them at the Disney Store at home for a good deal a while back.
 Animal Kingdom!  And the only (sort of) warm day.  We started in shorts, but the kids switched to pants later in the day.  Greg and I toughed it out though--we were in Florida, for goodness sake!
Waiting for the Lion King show
 We got to participate...our section was the Lions!

 A favorite experience at Animal Kingdom was the "Fari Ride" (Safari, to the lay person; Fari, to Owen).  We did this at least 3 times during our stay.  The hippos were one of my favorites.


 We had some super-awesome ribs for our first lunch.  We were on the Disney meal plan (for free!! It was a promotion during the time of our vacation), and we had more food than we knew what to do with. Really.  It made the trip extra-fun because we ate whatever we wanted, and we got stuff we never would have otherwise (because when we have to pay for it ourselves, we live on bread and water...pretty close, anyway).
 This is Owen telling Greg about the scary bug show we had just been to.  There were all kinds of warnings preceding the "It's Tough to Be a Bug" 3D show, that it could be scary for young kids.  I said, "Nah!  Our kids don't scare easily!"  And they assured us that they wanted to go.  So we went.
 And this is Owen saying, "I qwied, and I qwied, until I needed a Tweenex."  It's true.  About 2 minutes into the show, Owen started crying and saying, "This is scawy!!"  And I felt like a horrible mother.  He still talks about the scary bug show.  But not in any permanently scarred sort of way...just anecdotaly.
 Proof that it was warm for about 30 minutes of our vacation.
 We pushed through the day to make it just until the parade was over.  It was near Christmas time, so this parade had a Christmas theme, and we wanted to see it.
 This is how Owen experienced the parade.  While we were riding the bus back to the hotel, he perked up and said, "What about the pawade?"  He had missed the whole thing!
 Still in the 30 minutes of warm weather window.  All the parks were decorated for Christmas, with each park having a tree that was themed to the style of the park.


3 comments:

Gordon Magee said...

Looks like great fun Carey! Thanks for posting these. We love it!

Lisa Manrodt said...

thanks for sharing. My kids feel the same about the bug show. Lily has sworn it off, although this year we took them all on Dinosaur and Lily liked it. I think she can handle it now! Love Tusker House too and the relaxing view. Glad you enjoyed the dining plan.

Carey said...

Greg and Sophie did the Dinosaur ride because she was just tall enough and kept insisting she wanted to do it. About 10 seconds in, Greg was regretting it. She had her head tucked under her arm the whole time, and he thought she was going to throw up! Ha!