Port Orleans Riverside

After eating our breakfast we headed back to our resort to rest. The middle of the day was pretty crowded at Magic Kingdom and we were already tired this trip. I didn't bring the kids swimsuits because I didn't think we would have time to swim and they were not very happy with me.


The pathway from the West bus depot

the building where our room was

This resort is very pretty. We liked it as well if not better than Caribbean Beach (where we stayed last year).

Chef Mickey's

Our Chef Mickey breakfast was a lot of fun! We met the fab 5 characters and had a good breakfast (that included Mickey waffles which are always a hit).

Magic Kingdom morning

Magic Kingdom opened at 8:00 am on Saturday morning. The crowd level was expected to be a 10 that day so I knew we needed to get here early. Plus the opening show is really good. So we arrived about 7:40. We had a reservation at Chef Mickey's at 10:45 so I thought we could ride a couple of things before heading over there. We got so much done in this two hours. The park felt practically empty. We walked on all the rides we rode this morning.

This is a picture of some of the progress on the new fantasyland expansion. This is the top of what will be the Beast's Castle and have the new Be Our Guest restaurant. I cannot wait to eat there! 

Look how empty our walk to Frontierland was.  This would be vastly different in just a few hours.

Here is how our morning at Magic Kingdom went:

Arrive at 7:40
Watch opening show
Ride Space Mountain (get FP for later)
Ride Buzz Lightyear
Ride Tomorrowland Speedway
Meet White Rabbit and Alice
Try to pull the sword from the stone
Ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Ride Splash Mountain
Me and Kaitlyn ride Splash Mountain a 2nd time (without even having to get off the ride)
John and Kyle ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad two more times
Ride Pirates of the Caribbean
Take care of ticket issue (they weren't working in the FP machines)
Ride monorail over to Contemporary for Chef Mickey's Breakfast

Downtown Disney

After leaving Animal Kingdom we rode the bus over to Downtown Disney. We were going to try and eat down here and there were several shops to go in, including the lego store that I knew Kyle would love.

Wall full of legos!

 We ended up eating at Rainforest cafe, which was good.

Next time we visit Disney we must make time to come to Downtown Disney during the day so that we can explore more of what they have here.

Animal Kingdom

After checking in the hotel and unpacking the car we took the bus over to Animal Kingdom, we were the only people on the bus. We arrived at Animal Kingdom about 1:00.

The Tree of Life, which John said was from Avatar and the worker behind him quickly corrected him and said "no that's from the Lion King, but Avatar is coming". 

The Lion King show (such a great show!)

Here is how our Animal Kingdom day went:

Arrive at 1:00
Ride Dinosaur
John and Kyle ride Primeval Whirl while me and Kaitlyn go get fastpasses for Expedition Everest
Watch It's Tough to be a Bug
Meet Ms. Bunny
Meet Santa Goofy
Eat a funnel cake
Watch Festival of the Lion King show
Meet Minnie Mouse
Meet Lilo and Stitch
Kaitlyn and John ride Expedition Everest (Kyle changed his mind)
Watch the Nemo show
Ride bus back to hotel at 6:45

Surprise! We are going to Disneyworld

We picked the kids up early from school on Thursday and surprised them with a trip to Disneyworld. I had been planning this for about 4 months but they didn't know anything about it. We picked up Kyle first and I had made them shirts that said 'we are on way to Disney World' on them. When I went in to get Kaitlyn, Kyle climbed in the front seat and John didn't stop him so he found his shirt. Then he yelled to Kaitlyn when we came out of the school that we were going to Disney World. So my plan to get a video of the whole thing failed (thanks to John) but they were excited anyway.

Here's a better picture that I took when we stopped at a Whattaburger to eat. 

We drove part of the way on Thursday then got up early Friday morning and drove the rest of the way. We checked into our hotel (Port Orleans Riverside) and this was our room.

We were so excited to finally be here!

Ashley's party

Ashley turned 3 yesterday and her party was on Saturday. She had a farm theme party complete with a cowgirl outfit, cute pink boots and a pink tractor cake.

There was a tractor ride, lots of playing on the 'playground', knock-out, basketball, and 4-wheeler rides.