Our Family Trip to Disney World: Day 3, Hollywood Studios

I will admit that I woke up even more excited on Thursday than I had been the day before. You see, Hollywood Studios (AKA MGM) is my FAVORITE park. I'm not sure why other than the first two trips to Disney (that I actually remember) both involve magical memories at MGM. I will never forget my first experience on Tower of Terror or seeing that wonderful Ms. Piggy fountain by the Muppets. I LOVE THIS PARK! Here's Jonathan and I before we headed to breakfast:
I should also take a minute to give a big shout out to Aunt Ali who made us ALL matching Mickey Mouse shirts (see ours in above pic) She was so generous in doing this for all of us and I can't even begin to tell you how many compliments we got on the shirts throughout the day (even from people who WORKED at Disney) It also made it very easy to spot everyone in our big ole group.

We had decided that it would be best for everyone in our group to do breakfast on your own and meet at the bus stop at 9am to head to Hollywood Studios. We opted to do a simple breakfast using our snack credits on the dining plan. We did cereal, muffins, etc. which was fine since we had a big lunch planned.

Here's our group as we got to Hollywood Studios. Notice all the adorable Mickey shirts.

We immmediately headed towards Tower of Terror. We didn't get far though because we kept popping in and out of gift shops and that is when I found THE Princess Tiana costume. It was simply stunning and I KNEW I had to have it for Mary Elizabeth. We had the costume delivered back to the hotel as I didn't want to lug it around all day.

We got to Tower of Terror and Uncle Josh, Papa Eddie, Jonathan, me, Isaac and Luke decided we wanted to ride. I was giddy with excitement and even more excited that Uncle Josh had never rode on it before. The line wasn't long at all and before you knew it, we were heading up in the elevator. We had a blast and then headed back to meet our crew. After we met up, we decided to do Rock n Roller Coaster. This time it was me, Uncle Josh, Jonathan, Anna, Isaac and Luke. I was really excited because even though this was my third time to Disney in three years, both times before this ride had been closed. It definitely met my expectations and has definitely been moved to the top of the list of my favorite rides.

We got back to find the rest of our family cracking up. The street performers had started chatting with Papa Eddie and this lady fell in love with Papa Eddie. Here's Papa Eddie (my dad):
Here's the actress who fell in LOVE posing with Anna:
She told Papa Eddie she instantly knew he was from Tennessee because he was the only "ten I see!" The street actors and actresses are top notch at Hollywood Studios and I've decided that would be one of my dream jobs. Dressing up, taking on a different persona and talking to tourists all day (especially picking on them and cracking jokes).

We then headed over to the Playhouse Disney area and decided to see the show. It featured Little Einsteins, Pooh and Friends, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. This was probably Mary Elizabeth's favorite part of the trip. You sat criss cross applesauce on the floor and all the characters were puppets (which was just fine with Ms. I'm scared of anything full sized in a costume) and the music was loud. Lots of kids sang and danced along and Mary clapped a few times with excitement. Here's Aunt Ali and Maggie enjoying the show followed by a pic of the stage:

Now it was time to eat (again!) so we headed to our sit down meal of the day on our dining plan: italian food at Mama Melrose's. We had decided this would be our BIG meal of the day and I must say, it hit the spot. I got the tomato and mozzarella salad (aka caprese salad) and a ceasar salad. It was SUPER yummy and our service was awesome. This was one of the few sit down dining places where we didn't have to wait past our reservation, which was extra nice considering it was about 3 degrees cooler than hell outside.

After lunch, we headed to the Muppet store gift shop where the kids traded pins and we browsed around. Anna also purchased her first (and I think only) souvenir. Mom and dad decided to split off and head back to the pool. Ali, Uncle Josh, Maggie, and our entire family decided it was time for TOY STORY MANIA. Not only did we have a great time, but my boys enjoyed it so much they are now asking for this game for their Wii from Santa. From there, my family split from Ali's family and we headed to the animation place near Playhouse Disney. We waited inline, watched the awesome movie at animation at Disney, and then got a sneak peek at lots of memorabilia from The Princess and the Frog movie that is coming out December 11. As we walked out from this area, we noticed that their was an animation class and some character spots. We decided to stand in line to meet Mickey. We were a little unsure at how this would go since (as mentioned before) Mary Elizabeth was NOT A FAN of anything life sized and in costume but she did surprisingly well. Here's a few pics:


After Mickey, we decided it was time to head back. I stopped at guest services as the clerk from the store with the Tiana costume had accidentally kept my debit card (which I noticed and freaked about over lunch), so I had to go there and claim it. As we were approaching the guest services, the sky opened up and it POURED. We put on our Walmart ponchos that mom had bought for everyone before the trip, headed to guest services and hung out there for a while during the monsoon that occurred outside. The kids traded pins, we chatted with an awesome cast member named Les, and then finally decided to brave the rain and make a run for the buses. While we were waiting for the buses, Aunt Ali and her crew walked up so we were able to ride back to Coronado with them. We got back to the hotel and decided as a group we would do Downtown Disney. We decided to meet at the bus stop after everyone had time to freshen up.

UP NEXT: Downtown Disney

Our Family Trip to Disney World: Day 2, Magic Kingdom

After a very restful night's sleep at Coronado, we were up and at 'em by 7:30am. I was so excited because Jonathan was flying in later that night and we all missed him terribly! Today was Magic Kingdom and I'm not sure what I was more excited about: that feeling you get when you are standing at the beginning of Main Street with that amazing castle out in front of you OR seeing our girls in their custom Minnie outfits made by Melissa, owner of Jam Clothing Co.

We headed to the bus stop to meet the crew to head over to the Magic Kingdom. I love the look on Mary Elizabeth's face as she looks at Anna at the bus stop.

As we walked towards the Magic Kingdom, we realized we were there in time for opening or "rope drop" as they call it. The show was really neat and as security checked our bags and strollers, we were getting more and more excited about getting into the park. We stopped at guest services to get Josh's GAC card (for medical emergencies) and then we went straight to Crystal Palace for our 9:30 breakfast reservation. This pic was taken right before we headed into the nice, air conditioned restaurant for breakfast (it was HOT!)

Crystal Palace is a buffet style character dinner so on our dining plan, this counted as our one sit down meal of the day (we got one sit down, one quick service and one snack) We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast of Mickey pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, fruit, blah, blah, blah. I even had a bowl of Frosted Flakes cause I'm on vacation too! Pooh and all his friends came around to greet the children, sign autographs and take pictures. Pooh was first and got a pretty warm reception from Maggie, not so much from Mary Elizabeth. She enjoyed them from a distance, but heaven forbid they got close to her. She would start screaming, "No! No!" and swatting her arms. Hence, the pics are sans Mary Elizabeth.




After breakfast, we were ready to ride some rides. We headed straight over to Dumbo and stood in line in the heat. We were all gross by the time we got up to the ride and actually got on. Keep in mind, the crowds weren't that bad, but still a 20 minute wait in hell type temps can make anyone feel gross after a while. Everyone loved Dumbo and then we headed to the carousel where we walked right on. Then it was on to It's a Small World. The kids LOVED this ride and even though that adorable little song would be like a death wish were you to get trapped on this ride, it is awesome to see all the little children chanting that adorable little song. Here's a pic of Anna and Maggie I snapped from behind on IASW:
After IASW, we headed over to the Haunted Mansion. Not everyone rode this ride and when we came out after the ride, everyone who had been waiting on us was literally melting. Mary Elizabeth literally drank two full glasses of ice water in the 20 minutes we were gone. We decided it was time to cool down and do Splash Mountain. I should mention that this is Isaac and Luke's favorite ride so it ended up being me, Isaac, Luke, Anna, Uncle Josh and Papa Eddie. As we headed to the ride's entrance, we noticed that the stand by line wait was 45 minutes. I asked Josh to show the cast member at the front of the ride the GAC since that is what they told us to do at guest services (up until this point, we just waited in line). The cast member pointed us to the fast pass line and told us to go ahead. Wait, what? We don't have a fast pass, we have a GAC. Well, I guess in Disney's eyes it's the same thing. We literally were on the ride within 10 minutes. No melting Uncle Josh. It was amazing and we felt so blessed to have that little card. Splash Mountain rocked and we met back with the rest of the crew.

At this point, it's 1pm and we were hot, hungry and tired. We decided to head back to our resort and hit the pool. Papa Eddie, Juju, Aunt Ali, Uncle Josh, Maggie and Mary Elizabeth headed back to the room for the girls to nap while I took the rest of my crew to the food court at Coronado for lunch. It was AWESOME and we enjoyed our counter service meal of the day. From there, we headed back to the room, changed into our suits and hit the AMAZING pool. This sign was on the way back to our room and my kids loved it (talked about the sharks every day)
The great thing about Coronado's pool is that they have an awesome water slide that even I enjoyed! The pool is HUGE and they even have a baby pool so there are activities for the entire family.

We headed back to the room to take showers and get freshened up and then we decided to hit Epcot. If you stay at a Disney owned resort, every day you qualify for extra magic hours at one of the parks. It just so happened that Epcot, which normally closes at 9pm, was open to midnight that specific night for extra magic hours. We headed to the park and immediately went and rode the ride in the big ball (sorry, can't remember the name). From there, we went straight to Soarin', which is one of our favorite rides. Then, we went straight to Test Track which was not working so we decided to head over to the Food and Wine Festival in the worlds part of Epcot. Wow, was it packed. We were also starving because my crew had only eaten lunch and no dinner. At this moment, I opted for the bad mom card and let my kids eat ice cream for dinner. They were so excited and I was very thankful that they stopped whining. We watched the fireworks show and then decided to head back to the hotel.

Jonathan arrived around 11pm to a room full of sleeping kids and a sleeping mommy. Isaac and Luke were so excited to see their daddy that they all decided they wanted to stay in our room so we literally had 4 kids in a queen bed. It was quite the sight. We were just thankful to have daddy there! Next post: Hollywood Studios (my favorite park!)

Magic Kingdom Picture

Yes, I know I haven't done my second day at Disney yet, but I plan to work on Day 2 tomorrow. Until then, I thought I would wet your appetite with this pic that Uncle Josh took at the Magic Kingdom. Yes, he took this. Looks like a postcard huh?

Our Family Trip to Disney World: Day 1, Animal Kingdom

*My last post in this series will include lots of planning resources, websites, etc. that I used to help plan our vacation* There were 11 of us on this trip: my immediate family which includes me, my husband, 11 year old daughter, 7 year old twin boys and 2 year old daughter. My sister's family which included her, her husband and their 2 year old. Last, but not least, my parents: JuJu and Papa Eddie.

Our trip to Disney World in FL started on a Tuesday morning. We had decided to fly Southwest airlines simply because we wanted a direct flight since we were flying with 2 toddlers and we didn't want to have to pay for our checked baggage since we had a total of 11 bags between the 11 of us. It just so happened that the rates for the time we wanted to go were VERY high, especially for our return flight, so I would definitely recommend you try to plan your vacation further out than we did (6 weeks) and I would set yourself up to receive dings from Southwest if your travel dates are flexible. I have heard that you can get flights pretty cheap if you just continue to watch.

Since our flight was at 8am, we got to the airport around 6:30am. Southwest in Nashville is great in that they have seperate check in lanes for families with small children, so we were able to walk right up to the counter, get our bags checked, and get through security with no issues at all. *I will also take this pause to tell you to read through all your Disney paperwork that they send you beforehand. They provide special tags for you to not only identify your luggage, but it also tells them what hotel you will be staying in* They do this so that you literally don't touch your luggage again until it arrives in your room a few hours after you land. You should keep this in mind and not pack anything you will need right away because if you plan to go straight to the parks like we did, you won't have access to your luggage before you go. Here we are on the plane:


Sorry you won't find a picture of Papa Eddie and the boys, it didn't turn out good.

The flight is pretty quick, I think about 1 1/2 hours so we really didn't have an issue with the kids getting bored. Matter of fact, Mary Elizabeth curled up in my lap and took a nap which was perfect.

We arrived at the airport and headed straight for B1 where Disney's free transportation check in is. If you have already registered for all of this in your reservations, you literally have your info book stamped and walk straight to the bus for your hotel. You load onto a nice motorcoach that takes you to your resort. This typically takes about 45 minutes but because my children were fascinated that the bus had a restroom, this kept them occupied for most of the trip. That, and the fact that they show a video about Disney on the buses.

Disney has three levels of resorts: basic, moderate and deluxe. Because our flights were more expensive than we had originally planned, we ended up staying in a moderate resort. This basically means that it has no direct access to any of the theme parks, but does have a pretty amazing pool and bus transport to the parks. We chose Coronado Springs based on a friend's recommendation and I have to tell you, it was NICE! Matter of fact, we had previously stayed at Polynesian and Beach Club, and the only thing this resort lacked was monorail access. The food court was amazing and the pool was REALLY nice. We got to the resort around 11am (remember, they are an hour ahead of Nashville) and were pleasantly surprised to hear that my room was ready. It was great to be able to go and dump our carry on bags, etc. before heading to the parks. If you plan to stay at Coronado, I would highly suggest you stay at the Cabanas. The resort is HUGE with multiple areas, but the Cabanas area not only puts you close to the bus stop, but also to a fabulous pool with an amazing waterslide, play ground, arcade and snack bar.

After we dropped our items off, we immediately headed for the bus stop. Here's a pic of everyone (minus Mary and I) at the bus stop waiting for our bus to Animal Kingdom:


We immediately headed to Animal Kingdom. This was our favorite park last time so we decided to start there since we only had a few hours prior to our dinner reservation. We got there and realized it was HOT! Like 95 degrees with it feeling like over 100. Thank goodness we had checked the weather long before we came and had planned our wardrobe accordingly. I will also take a minute to tell you that my kids love pin trading, so we immediately found a cast member with a lanyard as we entered and the kids were so excited to start trading pins. Here's some pics of the kids as we entered the park:


We immediately searched out lunch, as by this point, we were all starving. We had gotten FREE dining because of the time of year we had booked and it was an incentive. Basically we received one snack, one counter service meal and one sit down dining meal per night we had a room. Disney does a great job with their maps so we were able to quickly find a counter service meal that everyone agreed on. A counter service meal allows you to pick a main course, a drink and a dessert so it's actually quite a bit of food. While we ate, the kids loved that all the animals roamed around our feet. We had ducks and various other birds that were very anxious to see if they kids would drop any food.

We then headed to Dinoland where you will find the most little kid friendly rides, although their isn't much in this particular park for small children. Pair that with the heat and our little ones were pretty miserable pretty quickly. We did ride a few rides, including Dinosaur. My parents kept the 2 little ones while the rest of us rode. It is an awesome, scary ride but my older children are thrill junkies like me so we all enjoyed it. By the time we were finished with that ride, my sister's family and JuJu and Papa Eddie were ready to head back and get checked in to their room. They took Mary Elizabeth with them but my older three and I stayed at Animal Kingdom for the parade, which we had never seen. It. was. amazing. The detail that goes into these parades is amazing and we really enjoyed it even though it was so hot. I literally took about 40 pics of this parade so here's just a sampling:



From there, we had to book it to make our dinner reservation at 5pm. We had dinner booked at Boma at Animal Kingdom Lodge, another resort on Disney property. We had heard about Boma from the same person who told us about Coronado so we were really excited to try the food. My older three and I were able to hop on a bus from Animal Kingdom over to the lodge, but everyone else who had gone back to the hotel quickly found out that you can't go from resort to resort via the bus system. You must take the bus to a park and then catch the other bus over to the new resort. Needless to say, we finally started dinner about 45 minutes late because of how long transportation takes. The food at Boma was WONDERFUL. It is buffet style with lots of African themed dishes, but they still had a great selection of "normal" food as my kids call it. The dessert section was wonderful.

After dinner, we headed back to Coronado Springs to take a look at the pool area and then it was time to turn in for the night. One of the great things about Coronado is that it is the only moderate resort that features two queen beds, so it was very comfortable for me and the girls to sleep peacefully. Isaac and Luke stayed in Papa Eddie and Juju's room. Mickey (aka mommy) also brought special gifts to the room for Isaac and Luke. You see, we had special outfits made for Mary Elizabeth, Maggie and Anna that had Minnie Mouse on them (THANKS Melissa!) so Mickey felt bad for the boys and bought them Wall-E shirts. It's little things like that help spread the Disney magic, so I always try to plan souvenirs long before we go because it saves us so much money and my kids never beg to buy anything while in the parks.

That's it for our first day, next post will be on Day 2: Magic Kingdom!

Our Family Trip To Disney World

I know I've been bad at blogging lately, but between fall break, our family trip to Disney, coming home to sick kids and a zillion other things, it honestly hasn't been a top priority. I decided today that it's time to catch up the blog and the best way to do that is to tell you about our trip to Disney World 10/13-10/18 in a day by day blogfest. I will be including pics, details of what we did, what we wished we could have done and what we would do different. I am doing this because I know how helpful it is to me to read others personal experiences with vacations so I'm hoping it will help out another family. Even if it kills me, I will have our first day post up tomorrow night so stay tuned!

We're going to Disney!!

We had always promised Anna we would take her to Disney before she was 9 years old, but it has just never worked out. Jonathan and I decided to plan a surprise birthday trip (arriving 2 days before her 9th birthday) and we really wanted to wait and tell the kids the morning we left. Yeah right.

On Sunday afternoon, Anna was trying on her princess dresses and I asked her if she was upset since I had broken a promise to her about Disney. She said "yeah, kind of" and I proceeded to tell her that we just couldn't afford it. Jonathan spoke up and said, "well, maybe we can" and then I said, "yes, I guess we can since we booked it for your birthday!" She burst into tears which made Jonathan and I both cry. The boys just sat there trying to figure out what in the world was going on. First, she called JuJu and Papa Eddie and was delighted to hear that they are going too! The next phone call was to Mrs. Vickie who knows everything about Disney and loves to help others plan their vacations (thanks Vickie!) I quickly grabbed my camera and snapped this pic of her telling Vickie that we were going.



I can't wait to see their faces when they see the castle at Magic Kingdom!

Baby Jack....or is it Tanith???

You think I am already picking out baby names don't you?!?!?

Well, I'm not....I am just wondering what is in my best friend Kim's belly....a Jack or a Tanith? Where did these names come from you ask??? Well, let me tell you.

Chris (her hubby) and Kim took us on a WONDERFUL trip to Disney the week after consignment mania for her 30th birthday. She told me they had "pulled the goalie" (if you know what I mean) and were going for #2. We were thrilled to hear that Chris is a good soccer player and scored the winning goal while in Disney. GO CHRIS!

Now, while in Disney...we had lunch at a yummy spot in Epcot and our adorable waitress' name was Tanith and yes, she was VERY British with an ad0rable accent which I tried to mock with not much luck. I told Kimberly she ought to name her next one Tanith...it sounded cute for about 52 minutes.

Although I am really good at telling people when they are pregnant (at not the most appropriate times I might add), I really suck at telling people the sex of their babies so I am dying to know what this one will be. Chris is convinced it is a Baby Jack but I am still pulling for Tanith, which is ridiculous b/c she won't name her Tanith anyway.

Anyway, really thrilled for you guys...I can't wait to meet the new little one and watch McKinley be the BIG SISTER! Oh and by the way, Chris, I think you are dead on...I think it's a Jack too!