Finn at Raglan Road

Everything you wanted to know about our Disney vacation… and much MUCH more!

It is really time for me to do this Disney blog post. I wanted to do it right after we got home so everything would be fresh in my mind, but let’s see how much I remember a month later. I really wanted this post to be something I can look back on the next time we go to be reminded of what we loved and maybe what we didn’t love quite so much. So there will be a lot of details and tips. If you are not interested in that, feel free to just browse and enjoy the pictures!

Before we left, I got extensions put in my hair. I LOVED having them for this trip especially. My hair is such that if it gets wet or blown it is pretty much a lost cause and I have to wash it and start all over. With long hair, it was great to be able to throw it into a pony-tail, or whatever. I just had a lot more versatility and I enjoyed that.

Our plane got in at about 430pm. We were able to hop on a shuttle straight to our hotel from the airport. My parents drove up from my sister’s house and met us at our hotel. We had dinner in the hotel and got our room situated. We relaxed after a long day of traveling. If you stay in a Disney Resort, they get your bags at the airport and deliver them to your room. That was a nice feature, except that our bags didn’t arrive until about 9pm.

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Here we are our first day on the bus. We started at Hollywood Studios. That was a little bit of a let down. Not much for little kids there. We had a character breakfast at Hollywood & Vine with the playhouse Disney characters which Finn loved. Burgundy was happy to watch them but didn’t want them anywhere near her!

Waiting for our reservation

The only real ride the kids got to go on was the Toy Story ride. It was cool, but a very long wait. By the last day we were much better at planning things out, getting fast passes, and even better at waiting in line. As this was the first real line the kids had to wait in, you can see how thrilled they are.

After the ride and a few 3-D movies, Nana & Papa took Finn & Indi while Cody and I went to ride the Tower of Terror – still my favorite ride there.

Finn really wanted to meet Lightning McQueen, he got his wish!

We had a special reservation that included dinner and then the Fantasmic! show in the evening. There was a little mis-communication so Nana & Papa took the kids out to eat and Cody and I had a romantic dinner for two. Unfortunately, we were pretty stressed out, worried that we wouldn’t get the show tickets for everyone, plus it was our first day in the parks so we were just a little nervous not having an eye on our kids. Luckily it all worked out fine. They still gave us 6 show tickets even though only 2 of us had dinner.

We came to find out that when you talk to Disney people on the phone they follow the rules, however, when you are actually there, they are extremely helpful and go out of their way to accommodate you. That was one of the reasons this vacation was so nice. Bravo, Disney, on your excellent customer service!

At the end of the first day, we went to the Fantasmic! show. Here’s a little girl who wasn’t used to all that walking and fresh air! She did wake up for the show though, and we all enjoyed it. We were blown away by the amount of people there. Thousands. For one show. Then right at the very end Burgundy announced she had to poop so I had to run out with her to beat the crowd and walk a half-mile back down the hill to the bathroom where she, of course, did not poop.

Cody had strong arms after this night!

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Our second day we went to Animal Kingdom. I get a kick out of this picture because it pretty well sums up Disney World. Lots of people!

We went into A Bug’s Life movie which was a great 3D deal. Burgundy didn’t like it, there were parts that scared her. I think all in all she was happy to be along but wasn’t quite sure of a lot of the stuff. She couldn’t go on most of the rides but didn’t seem to mind, she would just hang out with Nana & Papa. I discovered if we were in a show or on a ride and she seemed scared I would put my hand over her eyes. Then she was fine. Kinda funny. If I wasn’t fast enough, she would grab my hand and pull it up to her eyes then she was just fine. As long as she didn’t have to see it!

So, after Bug’s Life, we came out of the theatre and it was POURING. I had some $1 ponchos that I had brought and we put those on and went in search of a gift shop for ponchos for Nana & Papa. We all ended up in Disney World ponchos, they were made much better than the dollar ones. I bet they made a fortune on ponchos that day!

The rain died down to a drizzle and we decided to tough it out. That was a good decision because everybody goes home when it rains! They only close rides if there is lightning, so no lines! When you go to Disney World, I highly recommend doing their dining plan, it was great for us. We even decided to upgrade our plan to 3 meals a day. We ate like Kings for a week! It includes appetizer, entrée & dessert. (and Burgundy ate for free since she was under 3 (supposedly, shh! she was supposed to be, we were planning to go in November just before her birthday, what’s a few weeks?)) And pretty much everywhere we ate had fabulous food! You do need to make lots of reservations early! You can’t just walk in and sit down at a restaurant there – EXCEPT when it’s raining! We walked by a restaurant called Yak & Yetti that I had tried to get a res at but failed. I said, let me just double check, since a lot of people went home, maybe they didn’t show up for their reservations – and voila, we got a table no problem! Great Chinese food.

(tip: try to make more reservations in the park rather than at hotels – especially in the middle of the day, it takes a long time to get anywhere so better to have a res where you already are)

Stuffing our faces

View from the restaurant, there was tons of awesome bamboo at animal kingdom.

In line for the Everest ride. Finn wasn’t quite tall enough, we tried a trick later that let him go on Space Mountain, more on that later. Everest was cool, not quite the stomach drop I hoped for, but none of the rides really were (except tower of terror), but no line for this one and it was their newest ride!

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So, next day we went to Magic Kingdom. Luckily by that point we had more of a plan. We had 3 days to do Magic Kingdom. So instead of running here, then back there, then back here, we mapped out our day and it worked much better that way. Not quite so much aimless wandering.

So, by far the best part of that day was the Pirate’s League. Finn had been asking for pirate makeup since the day we got there. Burgundy decided she wanted it too. They almost weren’t going to let her because they thought she was too young, but once again the Disney employees were understanding and helpful and she got to do it as well. And oh, I am so glad that she did.

They do a whole thing, give you a pirate name, you are in a “ship” with the captain walking around, they make you take a pirate’s oath… This is the guy that did Burgundy’s makeup and he was awesome. He kept cracking up because she was so serious about it all and knew exactly what she wanted. No pink for this girl!

It did take some time, here’s Papa catching a quick cat nap while the kids were being transformed.

Here is Eric Battleshout.

And here is Kate Rigspinner.

Taking their pirate’s oath

Burgundy getting into character.

Burgundy was a pirate for the rest of the day. Finn thought it was fun, but Burgundy thought it was REAL. Paul Newman once told a story of his wife, Joanne Woodward, who once she put on a costume, she transformed into that character. That was Indi. She was arrg-ing and growling at us all day.

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So, we’re on to Tuesday which was Epcot.

Forgot to mention that the previous day it had gotten COLD. And I mean COLD. It was like 30 degrees. We of course did not have coats or winter things, thinking hey, it’s Florida how cold can it get? The answer: DAMN COLD. We each had on about seven layers, notice our hats & gloves which we or Nana purchased there. We were big puffy layer monsters.

We went on this ride called Living with the Earth. It takes you through the greenhouse and that was COOL. I’m sure as a kid I was bored to tears by this ride, but as an adult, and especially as a wife to my botanist husband, this ride was really interesting. Wish we could do some of these things with our garden!

Suspended Pumpkins

Tomato Tree

Fish water for the plants

We had another dinner-show deal so we had lunch at the Coral Reef which was a neat restaurant with one whole wall being a huge aquarium. Then we walked “around the world” and went to the Candlelight Ceremony. It was an orchestra with massed choirs and a celebrity reading the Christmas Story. I forget who the celebrity was, apparently we missed Whoopie Goldberg by a day.

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Next up, Wednesday. We took Wednesday off from the parks since we were there for 8 days (not including the day we got there) and had 7-day park passes. Nana & Papa drove back to my sisters to see Sydney in a school production. So we had breakfast at the hotel and I did laundry all day at the hotel. Cody had a kink in his neck so he spent the day in bed with the kids tearing apart the hotel room :)

That evening, we took a bus and then a boat to Fort Wilderness for the HoopDeeDoo Review, which was lots of fun and great food. Let me take a moment to talk about Disney transportation: if you stay at a resort you can use the buses. The buses are great when you are going to the parks in the morning. Only one day did we have to wait for a bus more than 4 or 5 minutes. Also we had the first bus stop on the line so we always got a seat (bus stop #2 at Coronado Springs, we were in Casitas #5). If you are going to another hotel, you have to go to a park, and then transfer to another bus to go to that hotel. When leaving a park, it usually takes a little longer to get the bus back to your hotel. Luckily, my parents had their car so we usually took the bus in the morning and they gave us a ride back to our hotel at night. You need to give yourself plenty of time when trying to get to a reservation. NOTHING happens quickly there. And when you have a meal, plan to be there for at least 2 hours.

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Thursday, we were back at Magic Kingdom doing the second-third of our park coverage. Luckily, it was a little warmer that day.

We had lunch with Pooh & friends

We went on the Small World ride and, like a nightmare, were stuck in the last room for about 20 minutes. (still singing in head: it’s a small world after all, it’s a small world after all…)

This was also the day Finn got to ride on Space Mountain even though he was a little shy of the height requirement. My dentist’s assistant told me they stuffed brochures into their son’s shoes to make him taller. So I folded up a dozen of the park maps you find every 10 steps and stuck them in his shoes. Voila! Instant 1/2 inch! So Space Mountain was the boy’s first roller coaster.

That evening, Nana & Papa returned with Jen, Adam and Sydney. We had dinner at Kouzzina by Cat Kora (of tv cooking shows), again, great food! It was so great to have everyone together and of course Finn & Burgundy were beside themselves with joy to have cousin Sydney there!

Sydney and fam were supposed to spend the rest of the weekend with us in Disney World. Unfortunately, Sydney got ill that evening and they had to drive back home. Everyone was sad about that, but luckily we would see them again before we went home.

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The next day we went to Epcot in the morning to ride Soarin’ which we had missed the day we were there which was a really neat ride, and back to the boardwalk hotel for lunch. Afterwards, we were all pooped, Cody’s neck hurt, my back was killing me and my dad’s back was pretty much out. So we took it a little easier that day. It had barely warmed up to about 70 maybe, so what did we do? Went swimming of course!

Here’s the view from just outside our room across Lago Dorado. The whole thing is part of our hotel, Coronado Springs.

That night, my dad decided to go back to the room to nurse his back, so my mom came with us to eat at Downtown Disney at Raglan Road. That place was great. Irish pub in theme, it even had Irish Dancers!

They invited anyone up who wanted to dance and of course Finn jumped at that opportunity! I posted a video of that separately because it didn’t really want to load for me here.

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Our last morning we had a reservation for breakfast in the castle with Cinderella. My parents drove us to the park and dropped us off while they went to park. As I’ve said, it takes a long time to get anywhere. We were running a little late. From the drop off, you don’t just walk in the gates. You walk half-mile, get on a monorail, walk another half-mile, wait in line to get in… we were running late this morning. It was raining pretty hard.

Perhaps my favorite memory from the whole trip: running barefoot in the rain towards the castle. My flip-flops were threatening to fall off my feet with every step since they were wet so I took them off and off we ran.
By the end of our trip, my feet looked liked dancer's feet. Did u know that underneath those pretty shoes dancers have ugly feet? Blistered, callused, swollen… yep, that’s how my feet were. By the end, all of my shoes were injurious and I ended up wearing slippers for 3 days after the trip!

So we were only a little late and we ate breakfast in Cinderella's castle. I ALWAYS wanted to go up in the castle. This was really cool for everybody - but especially me :)

Princess Aurora

Ariel checking out Burgundy's Dinglehopper

Belle, our favorite. I thought it was interesting that she had on her Provençal outfit instead of her Princess gown!

Another rainy day…

On our last night, we went to Mickey's backyard BBQ. Perhaps if we had scheduled this event earlier in our trip we would have enjoyed it better. As it was, I think this is the only thing we didn't all really enjoy. First, my dad's back was out and mine was on the verge. Second, look at this picture. Does it look like fun to just let your kids loose in this? I didn't think so either.

Finn was waiting so patiently to dance with Mickey. I finally had to tell Mickey, "hey my kid has been waiting to dance with you all night, would you please dance with him for a minute?" I'm sure the people in these character suits hate the parents. But seriously, Finn followed Mickey around for like a half-hour.

But goofy is his favorite anyway and he was happy to dance with him.

It's in an open air pavilion. It is VERY loud. It is very crowded. The kids are following the characters around like the pied piper and all the while I am trying to keep sight of my two children. Can you find Finn & Burgundy in this picture? Now picture it moving and much louder. That's how fun it was.

We realized that both kids were as worn out as the adults were and they were happy when we suggested leaving early. Next time, I guess we will know to schedule something a little more quiet and relaxing on our last night!

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So, the next day we checked out and took the shuttle to the airport so we could pick up our rental car to drive to my sister’s house. That was, incidentally the only time we used the stroller we borrowed the entire trip. We loaded it up with Disney bags to get them from our room to my parents’ car so we wouldn’t have to lug them on the shuttle. That worked out great.

Our kids were total troopers and walked everywhere. And there is a LOT of walking. I’m guessing we walked 5 miles a day easily. But the kids did AWESOME. Cody only carried Burgundy if we were running somewhere. Otherwise, her little legs did a great job of keeping up!

So we spent the next few days at my sister’s house celebrating Christmas a couple days early. We were all completely worn out and/or sick. But what fun we had!

"he was THIS big!"

The next morning we packed up and went to the beach. The very cold & windy beach.

The locals couldn’t believe we actually went in the water.

The boys looking for little crabs.

We saw a dolphin!

Then, our Christmas celebration.

We had such a wonderful vacation. We can’t wait to do it all again!

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edit: forgot to also add, make lots of character breakfast & lunch reservations! There are character photo-ops throughout the parks but there is always a line. If you do the character meals, the kids get to dance and hang out with them up close & personal, and you don't have to wait in line just for a photo!

Another great thing we did was have a Disney credit card for a few years before our trip. We put all our big purchases on it, like my Lasik, dental work, new kitchen table, etc. You get 1 point ($1) for every $100 you put on the card. By the time we went we had 400 points on it so we used that for all our purchases (souvenirs, clothes, hats & gloves, etc.) and didn't really spend any cash on anything except gratuity for meals!