The Shrine of The Mouse!

Let's face it Walt Disney was a genius! How else can you explain why rational, sane people would want to spend tons of money, to go on vacation and run themselves to death. We had a great time but seriously need a vacation to get over our vacation.

We took lil K out of school early on the last day of school solely because it saved us over $500. in airfare to leave a day early! She got straight A's on her report card, I think she will be okay! We flew into Orlando on SW, it was cheap and it was a direct flight, can't get much better than that! We followed the white Mickey glove to our ride on the Magical Express (bus service) to the beautiful Port Orleans Riverside hotel. After checking in and getting some dinner at the food court (food was expensive and okay, nothing to write home about!) we returned to our room to find our luggage had been delivered safe and sound (always a good start to a vacation, when your luggage arrives in one piece.) Lil K and big K took a dip in the pool while I unpacked.

The first day was spent at Animal Kingdom, where lil K got her hair wrapped (something she had been planning for several weeks) and we rode some rides, saw some shows. Then the bottom dropped out of the sky and we got very, very wet!
Luckily it was close to closing time so we just headed back to the hotel. It cleared up and we all went swimming again after dinner.

Day two was spent at MGM, where we learned lil K is our roller coaster loving baby. She would not ride Tower of Terror but loved the roller coasters. It was at MGM that I ran into my good friend David G. who I grew up with and had not seen in several years. Talk about small worlds! Unfortunately, we did not get to visit long because we both had places to be, we had Beauty and the Beast to see and then a Hoop Dee Doo Review reservation that evening. Hoop Review was great, the food was pretty good and the show was corny but very entertaining.

Day three was spent at Magic Kingdom in the morning, a break for swimming and a short rain storm in the afternoon and then dinner at Cinderella's castle in the evening. We had a good dinner and were able to watch the fireworks from the castle windows. Lil K enjoyed the characters and big K enjoyed the fireworks and the castle. Me, I enjoyed making my people so happy. Magic Kingdom had late hours that night so we were able to enjoy the park in the cooler night air and with much shorter lines after our dinner.

Day four and five were spent at Epcot, which is my husband favorite park. It was there we ran into a second friend from college. It is really odd when you are far from home and you run into people you know. We had reservations for Rose and Crown for dinner at Epcot. It was great, we ate on the patio and had front row seats for the Illuminations show that night. Soaring at Epcot is a great ride, be sure and go early and get a fast pass to ride it (it is so popular that the fast passes run out by about 2 pm) It is a stimulator ride and you feel like you are in a glider going over all these different places, mountains, water, fields, Disney World...too cool!

The last day we were at Disney, we went to the Grand Floridian and had a character breakfast with Mary Poppins, Alice, The Mad Hatter, Tigger and Pooh. The food was pretty good and the hotel is lovely.

The first time we went to Disney in 2004, I did not get any dinner reservations or character meals. This time we did and it was well worth it. If you are going and you have younger children, it is worth it to book the reservations. The kids really get a kick out of getting the characters autographs and talking to them.

Like I said before Walt Disney is a genius. He got this notoriously stingy, cheap person to shell out big bucks to wait in long lines, get pushed around by sweaty people, eat horribly expensive so-so food and be seriously sleep deprived all week. Yet I had a great time and can't wait to go back and do it all again! Maybe there is something in the water?

We actually did not do that much damage. We limited lil K on what she could buy, so we did not end up with a bunch of cheap junk. She got her hair wrapped and her face painted and bought a couple of things with money from her grandparents but we did not buy a lot of stuff in the parks. I had bought a few things for her at the dollar store before we went, like the glow in the dark bracelets and necklaces that are so expensive in the parks, I got them for $1 and gave them to her before we went out at night. We stayed in a moderate resort but only because the cheaper ones were all booked up. You can do Disney on a budget if you try really hard. It is a really cool place to go if you can manage it. The attention to detail is just incredible. If you are not familiar with Disney theme parks and the things I have been writing about, just go to disney.com and you can find pictures of everything there.

Other than the long lines and hot weather. the only negative things that happen were that big K lost his favorite hat and I caught this awful cold! We are still hoping someone will find his hat and I am slowly getting over this cold.

Sorry for the long post but that was our trip to Disney! If I ever figure out how to post pictures maybe I can show you some of our fun times. I think I will try to make that my goal to figure out how to post pictures by the time we get back from Hawaii, because I know you will want to see those pictures!