We counted down the days and really the kids had NO clue what was in store for them. Neither of them really knew what Disney World even was. Dave had been at a young enough age he didn't remember anything. And I had gone with my family in middle school. But there is nothing like taking your own kiddos to the most magical place on earth.
I am extremely grateful to Premier for giving us the opportunity to earn this trip for free, plus extra cash to spend. There's no way I could have earned this for my family without the support of my awesome hostesses, customers, and friends. The memories our family have are priceless.
We flew Southwest and thanks to their free bags, we were able to pack one whole suitcase of just food. It was such a good thing we did. The kids went through the snacks like crazy, and it beat paying an arm and a leg for snack food all day at the parks.
Poor Gavin got left at home with my mom for a few days and then Dave's parents for a few days. We knew he would make this go-go-go trip a lot harder, but we really had no idea how glad we were that he wasn't there until we were actually experiencing it for ourselves. It would have been a completely different trip with him. And although we all missed him so much, we were glad he wasn't there to slow us down.
It was the kids' first time to fly (other than being babies), so the excitement was high.
We got into Orlando around 11pm and Aunt Stefanie was up and waiting for us when we checked into our resort.
One of the highlights of this trip was the blessing it was to be there with Dave's sister and her family. The cousins had so much fun together. It just made me wish so much that their Michigan cousins could be there too!
Along with our park hopper tickets through Premier, we got a free day to spend at Blizzard Beach water park. I love water parks, and this was the first time our kids had been to one. If you ask Mason what his favorite ride was the entire trip, he says the Lazy River every time. Such a funny favorite considering all the crazy rides they were on. If I were to do our trip again, I would have saved the water park day as somewhat of a "rest" day in between other days we were hitting the parks hard.
Wednesday night was the official start to Premier's trip. The adults had a big dinner and the kids got to go the most insanely fun "kids" camp. Hundreds and hundreds of Premier kiddos, loud dance music, bouncy houses, video games, face painting, basketball hoops and kid food. I was a little nervous checking our kiddos in, but was glad they would be with their bigger cousins. In the end, poor Mason didn't have a very good time and was super glad to see his mama when we picked them up. And I was super glad that his big cousin Tyler stuck with him and made sure he was okay.
We stayed on Disney World property at the Dolphin Resort. Everything was super convenient. We got on a bus every morning to head to any of the parks, and our double stroller that we rented from an outside company was delivered to our hotel and waiting for us when we arrived.
You could walk to a little Boardwalk that had little shops and restaurants, and even a little general store that we were able to get milk for cereal back in our room.
Our 2nd day we were off to Magic Kingdom!
The absolute best part of Magic Kingdom might possibly be when you make that turn onto Main Street and get that first glimpse of Cinderella's castle. It's pretty magical.
We started in Tomorrow Land where Taylor found her favorite ride of the entire trip - Space Mountain. This was one of the few that Mason couldn't ride, but I am almost sure he wouldn't have liked it. She is much more adventurous than he is. On our first time to ride, before we knew what to expect, Taylor got in the very front seat. It was crazy scary! Everything is in the dark, and Taylor was screaming at me that she was scared (but laughing at the same time). Because I was in the seat behind her, I couldn't tell if she was liking it or not. But I could not imagine her liking to be the first seat that was being shot and dropped into space.
But she loved it and begged to ride again and again. Unfortunately riding again and again isn't possible at Disney World with lines that are hours long. But we did get her on it a few other times later on.
Then it was on to Fantasy Land. The kids couldn't believe we could walk right by the castle.
The kids learned quickly that they would be waiting in a lot of long lines. But once we figured out the strategy involved in always having a "Fast Pass" in your hands, we felt like we really got through lines pretty good. The longest we probably waited for any ride was 45 minutes, which is still a very long time for little ones. But nothing compared to the 2-3 hours that people waited for some rides. Every ride had an electronic sign at the entrance to let you know how long the wait was. And we even had an app on my phone that told us wait times, parade times, and a map of all the parks. It was quite handy. And that Fast Pass is a genius idea and definitely helps keep people happy.
Two rides I really remember from when I was there as a kid was "It's a Small World" and the Tea Cups. We made sure to get the kids on both.
Taylor was excited to see the statue of Walt Disney, thanks to the easy reader iPad biography I downloaded for the plane ride for her.
We only got through Tomorrow Land and Fantasy Land before we headed back to our hotel around 5pm for a nap so we could go back and stay late into the night for the fireworks and more rides. We slept from 5-7pm, and headed back to Magic Kingdom to get spots on Main Street for the parade and fireworks.
This night was definitely a highlight of our trip. The kids lit up like crazy for each new character they saw in the parade and waved like crazy. They were adorable!
And thanks to the old-school movies I tend to pick up for them, they knew exactly who Pete and Elliott were. Pete's Dragon was one of mine and my sister's favorite movies growing up, and now one of my kids' favorites too.
The fireworks were amazing. And we had the perfect seats to see Tinkerbell fly all the way down from the top of the castle. Taylor's face was priceless.
Seriously just magical.
As if it wasn't late enough, we decided to hit the Big Thunder Mountain line that we hadn't gotten to earlier in the day. The line is forever long during the day, and the wait was only about 30 minutes after the fireworks. This was Mason's first big roller coaster and he loved it!
And what better way to end the night than with a funnel cake at 11:30pm.
And then to top it all off, on our way out, we saw that the line to meet Mickey was only a 5 minute wait. All day long it was an hour or more. This was our chance!
We had to beg Mason to get in the picture. He wasn't happy about meeting characters one bit. He preferred just looking at them from a distance.
We got back to our hotel that night after midnight. We put in 13 total hours at the park in that one day. And still didn't even get to everything. So we went back to finish a few days later.
One secret for any of the parks is to get there right when they open. And if you can high tail it to the back of the park first, you'll have short lines. The morning that we went back, we got so lucky and had super short lines and even got to ride a few of them over again. Splash Mountain was so fun! Check out our faces in the back of the picture.
A huge part of Disney World is meeting the characters. You could probably spend an entire day or more just waiting in lines to meet all of them. I'm glad our kids weren't super into that. But there were just a few that Taylor had her heart set on meeting. And Ariel was one of them. We waited 40 minutes to see her, the longest we waited for any character. But it was worth it. I love how they don't hurry you through when it's your turn. Ariel talked to her for several minutes before it was picture time. If the character has their actual face showing (like the princesses), they will talk to you. If their real face is covered up with a costume, they don't talk (like Mickey).
Ariel was so sweet to her, and Taylor loved it.
Mason had no desire to stand in line for Ariel, she he and Daddy went to ride a roller coaster.
Toy Story is a favorite of all of ours, so we definitely had to make it a family picture.
So get this, if you yell "Andy's Coming!" at Woody and Jesse (this only makes sense if you've seen the movie), they are supposed to fall down and pretend they are toys. Funny, huh!?! I didn't know this until I heard someone yell it from the train above. I thought the person was just being clever, but later learned it was a real "thing". Unfortunately their photographer lady yelled back that they were working right now.
And that's it. It took us 1.5 days at a pretty fast pace to get through Magic Kingdom.
I cannot even tell you how hot it was every day. During the afternoon hours, we were soaked of sweat. There is no way our kids could have ever made it without the double stroller we rented for the entire trip. Thanks Stef, for that suggestion! We were thinking we wouldn't have to do a stroller since we were leaving Gavin at home, but I am soooo glad we did. I honestly don't even know how Dave and I made it. Thank goodness for the air conditioned shows that we could take a quick break at, and even some of the rides had lines that were inside in the AC. I think we estimated that we put in about 6 miles a day in 90 degree heat plus high humidity. On the plus side, our appetites were smaller than we had planned, because of always being so hot, so in the end we came in under our food budget!
We slept hard every night, our feet and bodies ached, and we woke up to do it again the next day.
To be completely honest, Disney World is quite possibly the most exhausting vacation ever. If I were to do it again, I'd make our trip a little bit longer and add in a few "break days" in between the "go hard" days. Days to just hang at the resort pool and take good naps. Instead of 5 intense days in a row. But it was all worth it. The memories we made and the fun we had with our two oldest was absolutely amazing.
Stay tuned for lots more Disney!
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