Month: May 2016

Let’s start with the greatest ride ever, A Small World
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The boys loved Tomorrowland Speedway
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And Av and I had one ride at Magic Kingdom we wanted to do with everyone more than any others: Space Mountain, which we did SO many times!

(Have to say, we are still disappointed our beloved Mr Toad’s Wild Ride has been closed for years. haha!)

We did every ride other than the toddler ones between these two trips. Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion are still terrific.  If you’re going to Hollywood Studios and will do Toy Story Mania, it’s a million times more fun than Buzz Lightyear at MK. Both of the newer roller coasters at MK, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Big Thunder Mountain, are fun but not scary. And Splash Mountain is such a great, long, fun ride. Between Space Mountain and Splash Mountain, we could just do those two over and over while at MK and be completely happy.

At Epcot, Soarin’ was open last year but not this year. We thought Soarin’ was good, but were SO glad we had a FastPass for it as the standby wait was over a couple of hours last year. I still like the ride at The Land:
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We did every ride at Epcot again this year, and the boys’ favorite was the Chevrolet Test Track, where they got to design their own car, then see how it performed during the ride.
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Shugie’s second favorite is Spaceship Earth, which is the slow ride inside the geosphere.

Another nice thing is that both years, our trip as been during the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival. There are *so* many more pictures I could have taken, but on this trip I made a decision to take fewer pictures and just experience everything more. Remember it, just like I wanted the boys to. Not everything had to be documented.

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Each night, we watched the closing ceremony from at least one of the parks. This is from Epcot last year:
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At Hollywood Studios, we are in love with Toy Story Mania. Shug found his cousin’s (kinda distant, and only by marriage) handprints outside the theatre:
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One of the best shows we saw was the Fantasmic show at HS. We did the Fantasmic dinner package which cost extra, but we got good seats (our waiter told us the best place to sit in the reserved section — toward the top rather than the bottom, and close to the middle).
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HS is a somewhat low on rides, and will be until the Star Wars areas open more.

The BEST THING EVER happened at HS last year, though. We were in the second row of seats in the Great Movie Ride, behind the driver. In the part of the ride where our kind guide gets out of the car and Mugsy kidnaps all of us, Shug *forgot* for a second that it was all make-believe, and before we got moving again, he STOOD UP and told Mugsy that he couldn’t treat our driver like that and he shouldn’t be taking off with all of us! Ohmygosh, people were clapping for Shug and he was our hero! I think ‘Mugsy’ got a real kick out of it too. I reminded Shug that this was all planned and it wasn’t real, but it upset him that our driver was treated so shabbily. So proud of him.

At Animal Kingdom, Shugie wasn’t so sure about getting on Kali River Rapids, but decided he liked it even after he got soaked
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We rode the Expedition Everest coaster half a dozen times in a row last year because there was very little of a line the hour before the park closed. Av started to turn green, which made everybody else that much more fervent about riding it again! haha! It’s the boys’ favorite coaster, though Shug thinks Wild Eagle at Dollywood and Fury 325 at Carowinds are pretty close.

It was really exciting to see the rhinos up close on the Kilimanjaro Safari
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I didn’t bring my phone to the water parks (we didn’t bring anything and didn’t wish to rent a locker) but we visited both Disney water parks, Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon, this year. Blizzard Beach was fun with several slides and had a very long lazy river going around the whole park. We thought Typhoon Lagoon was tons more fun because it had slides plus a saltwater shark reef that Av and Shug swam through (Shugie was insistent that we get in the lazy river there immediately as that’s his favorite thing). And best of all was TL’s wave pool (the largest in the country), which was different than any other we’ve been to: instead of a constant mix of waves, every couple of minutes there would be a ‘boom’ followed by a six-foot surf wave. Once it comes, you face the beach and it carries you along as you swim. Can’t even say how fun that was!!

Tomorrow: Disney food!

Last year, we surprised the boys with their first week to Walt Disney World. We’ve been waiting because we wanted to make sure they were told enough (at 6 and 7, perfect) to be able to do most everything and be able to remember it. One morning last spring, we got up and told the boys we were going to go in to the airport so they could see some planes taking off (they’d never been on a plane before) — and Av already had the car packed with suitcases so they had no idea what we were up to.

When we got inside, they thought everyone had to go through security, so that was no issue. And then I told them: guess what? We’re going to Des Moines, Iowa!

And they were really surprised and happy about that

Des Moines must be marketing to little kids, because mine were just tickled about going there.

Completely oblivious to the signs and announcements saying we were actually going to Orlando. I think excitement just took over everything.

We took Southwest as it was a direct flight and just the times we wanted. When we made it off the plane in Orlando, we walked right over to Disney Magical Express (the buses that go from airport to the hotels) and opened the box with the boys’ Magic Bands and woweeeee they were just crazy-happy!

This year, the boys *had* to go back to WDW so they did some of the planning, including reading the latest Birnbaum’s and other guides.

Av and I last stayed at WDW in 2001 for a convention that was held at Coronado Springs. Coronado Springs Resort is a Disney convention hotel and is grouped as one of the moderate hotels. Since we planned on staying in the parks from morning to late night and simply using the room to sleep in, we thought it wouldn’t make sense to spend more money on one of the more premium hotels like the Polynesian, Animal Kingdom Lodge, or Grand Floridian. This was a great plan, because that’s exactly how it worked out.

The hotel surrounds this lake
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Some of these pics are from the trip we just got back from, because we were so satisfied with the hotel from the year before that we decided to just do it again this year
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The rooms are themed after the American Southwest
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The maids made towel art for us each day they arrived
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We had Park Hopper and went to at least two or three of the six parks (besides Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom, this year we also purchased the extended passes for the waterparks, Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon) each day. Sometimes in the afternoon, we would come in for an hour or two and hang out at the hotel pool. I actually like this pool better than the other two we saw, Polynesian and Animal Kingdom Lodge — this one at Coronado Springs is large and has a slide Shug went down a couple hundred times. There were other activities poolside too.

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Because this is a Disney hotel, we walked to one of the bus stops (this year they have screens to let you know what time each bus will arrive! Yay!) surrounding the hotel to go straight to whichever park we wished.

Also: not only was our luggage from the airport delivered to our hotel room without us having to be there (we didn’t have to claim it in Orlando — it has Disney tags and the Disney people took it), when we departed, we simply checked our luggage *at* the hotel which meant we didn’t even have to deal with it again until we arrived home at baggage claim. Huge plus.

Last year, the day we left, the boys got to watch some Disney art being made just with water and a boom behind the main lobby: