Meeting the Mouse!

Back in February, we told my parents that we wanted to take the kids to Carlsbad Caverns, and we wanted to take them with us. My dad was excited (I get my cavern obsession from him.  I'm trying to pass it on to  my kids.).  My mom said, "But Jackson and I want to go to Disney World."

Guess who won? ;)

We had discussed going to Disney more than once, but thought we would wait until Annabelle was bigger.  However, my parents made the pitch that they had gotten to go to Disney World with all their other grandkids, and they wanted to take our kids while they were still able to enjoy it. Plus, it was the last year we would be able to take a trip like this while everyone else was in school.  All good points.  We started planning.

In planning the trip, I went through Michelle Shears of AAA Vacations in South Carolina.  She planned my parents' trip to Disney five years ago, and is something of a WDW guru.  We only talked on the phone once and did the rest of the planning via email.  She was super helpful, and although I could have booked the whole thing online myself, it was nice to have someone else making sure all the bases were covered (it was also a little cheaper!). 

The thing I love about Disney is the attention to detail in every aspect of your stay.  I worried about how much fun Annabelle would have because she was so small.  Turns out she could ride anything without a height requirement!  This is a HUGE plus for families with kids. The best part though, is there is soooo much to do that does not have a height requirement. 

Jackson and Sadie were absolutely in awe of all the characters.  We scheduled two character breakfasts through the Disney Dining Plan (AN ABSOLUTE MUST).   This was by far the easiest way to meet the characters because they come to your table and sign autographs and take pictures (the picture above was from the princess breakfast at Epcot.  See the smile on Sadie's face? She was in HEAVEN.).  Otherwise you have to wait in line.  However, while we were at the Hollywood Studios, we stumbled upon a building where we were virtually the only people there...and we got to meet a ton of characters all at once with fairly short lines (I think it was the art of animation studio or something like that, but I'm not 100% sure...it was just past the Little Mermaid show/ride/experience--which the kids also loved).

...Including this guy:

This encounter led to my absolute favorite picture of the whole trip. The DW photographer noticed Kevin and Annabelle standing off to the side while Jackson and Sadie got their picture taken, and asked if Annabelle would like to meet Mickey.  As I was saying that Annabelle was a little wary of big costumed creatures, this happened:

Seriously, couldn't you just die from the cuteness??!?!?!?

We had to tear her away from him. It was total love.  She's such a sweet mess.

Again, let me say, character dining is the way to go...

And here are a few (okay, a lot) more of pics from our trip:

  

For some reason, the only characters that really weirded Sadie out were Buzz and Woody.  She didn't shy away or cry or anything like that, but when we left, she said, "Why were they so BIG???"  She has a point. :)

One of my favorite parts of the whole trip was getting to ride all the "roller coasters" with Sadie and Jackson.  Jackson and I went with the school to Six Flags a while back, but Sadie's never been tall enough, so you can imagine her excitement in being able to ride almost all the rides (there were a couple of very disappointing exceptions for her--Space Mountain and the big one at Animal Kingdom--but we assured her we would come back when she was older and ride them all!

Just a little picture to remind you that Annabelle was there too! :)

  A couple of things we learned from our journey is... 

A) Renting a stroller is the way to go if you have little ones.  We actually rented a double stroller so that Jackson and Sadie could rest as they needed.  The strollers at the park are functional (if not pretty), and you don't have to worry about packing one. There are cheaper stroller rentals outside the park, but I didn't want to have to worry about lugging it on the bus/train/whatever.

B) Stay inside the park if you can.  And if we go back, we will stay at one of the resorts with monorail service.  We had bus service, which was reliable and fine.  But our resort (Coronado Springs--really nice, but a little spread out) bus stop was the absolute farthest point from the front entrance compared to other resorts and/or the monorail stop. When you're lugging around a 1.5 year old, that extra walk is not fun.

C) Did I mention the DINING PLAN?  And while I'm thinking about
it, after you buy the dining plan, you need to get online and make reservations for your evening meals (or whenever you want to sit down to eat).  You can do it while you're there, but a lot of the better restaurants fill up quickly.  It will save you a lot of "hey, where do we want to eat tonight?"

D)  I highly recommend the character dining.  We chose to do these at breakfast, because the kids would be fresh and happy, and they eat better at breakfast. I researched all the possibilities before we left, then reserved our places a month or so in advance.  I knew Sadie would want to meet all the princesses, so you can eat at Cinderella's palace in the Magic Kingdom or Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Epcot. Both have princesses.  The castle, however, counts as two sit down meals per person, and the menu wasn't something I thought my kids (or me, for that matter) would enjoy.  We loved our choice (well, Jackson didn't.  He hid under the table when the princesses came to the table.  He was afraid of cooties or something).  Our other breakfast was at Tusker House in Animal Kingdom (see pic above) and had the traditional Disney characters (Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Mickey). It's a safari type feel and Jackson and Sadie both loved it.

Overall, we had an amazing time.  The weather was great, the crowds were minimal compared to summer, and the kids are still talking about it. That's a pretty good indication that we had fun. :)