Disney Vacation

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I am so excited! We have decided to take the kids to Disney World for the first time next fall. My parents are actually going to come with us, so we will have help with the kids and also other adults to hang out with. We are planning to go for at least ten days probably two weeks so that we have time to do “everything” (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, maybe Hollywood Studios-Jonathon and I aren’t crazy about HS but I know my dad will want to see it again, Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach, Downtown Disney, and probably a day trip to Sea World and I want to go to the alligator place!) Also I want it to be relaxed and not having to go from sunup to sundown with two small children. We will either stay at a value or moderate resort (definitely on property) at this point I am thinking either Pop Century- I have heard horrible things about bus rides from ALL Stars- or Caribbean Beach. We stayed at CB once a long time ago and liked it. We are starting to save now so that we don’t have to put anything on a credit card. Although I am thinking maybe we should get the Disney visa or whatever it is to start earning points for our trip!

If you have any input on doing Disney with little kids, please comment and share with me. I have been reading Disboards and All Ears as well. That helped me a lot with our last trip but it was two years ago.

2008 IN REVIEW

Filed Under Bailey's Birthday, Christmas, Cloth Diapering, Daddy, Disney Vacation, Eighteen Months, Eleven Months, Fifteen Months, Firsts, Fourteen Months, Hair, Halloween, Nineteen Months, Play, Professional Pictures, Seventeen Months, Sixteen Months, Ten Months, Thirteen Months, Twelve Months, Twenty Months | 4 Comments

We were so blessed with a wonderful year. No major catastrophes, no deaths in our families, a daughter who has stayed healthy (with the exception of a few colds) and continued to grow and learn and amaze us… Here are the highlights of our year.

January- please note her lack of hair, compared to now

February- and Bailey is walking!

March

April- happy first birthday, Bailey!

May

June

July

August

September- Jonathon and I went to Disney World

October

November

December

Happy New Year!

Disney Vacation- Epcot

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I just realized I have been ridiculously lazy about posting my all the pictures and the rest of the Disney vacations‘ stuff. So I am going to try to post as many pictures as I can from Epcot, before I get too bored. The rest will probably come another day.

However, one thing I will say about Epcot is that if you don’t do anything else, you HAVE TO RIDE SOARIN! It is the most amazing ride, your seats rise and move but everything else takes place on screen. You really feel like you are flying over all these different places, complete with smells.

Here is what allearsnet has to say about it:The unforgettable experience combines cinematic artistry and state-of-the-art motion base technology. You are literally lifted 40 feet inside a giant projection screen dome and completely surrounded with the beauty and wonder of the state of California as their elevated theater seats take them on a scenic tour over the Golden Gate Bridge, the Redwood forests, Napa Valley, Yosemite and more. The free-flight experience intensifies as guests feel the sweeping winds and smell fragrant orange blossoms and pine trees around them. I should also say that you are seatbelted in but they recommend to take off flip flops before the ride starts. You tilt a lot of different directions. We went on Soarin at least five or six times. You have to use a Fastpass or your wait is crazy at most times of the day.

Soarin is located in the Land Pavilion, along with the ride Living With the Land. It might be boring for kids, but we thought it was interesting. You ride a very slow moving boat through different time periods (ice age, etc) and then finally to present day. We got a halfway decent self portrait of the two of us on the ride- that’s the hard thing about traveling with only two people- most of your pictures are just one of you!

It shows how people have gotten food at different times in history. The current time period includes a huge greenhouse with a lot of different growing methods. The sign on this pumpkin says “Earning My Ears.”

We ate at the Garden Grill Restaurant. This is one of the meals that was included in our dining plan. It’s about $30 a person for lunch, but it is a character dining experience in a slowly rotating restaurant. During part of the rotation you can look out and see different exhibits from Living With the Land. We did this on our first day in Orlando and it was fun to meet all the characters right away. We were also starving, and the food was amazingly good. It is an all you can eat, family-style meal.

Something fun that we did was riding on Segways. They are those two wheeled personal transport machines. Here, we have them in the Science Center for the workers. At Epcot you can go on two different Segway tours, so as soon as Jonathon saw that i knew we would have to make the time to do a ride on them! The people are really good about showing you how to use them, and you practice first on a little obstacle course.

We spent some time the first evening we were there, just walking around and visiting all the different countries. There are whole areas of the park dedicated to different countries around the world. It’s really neat, because the theming is so real, the people who work there are from those countries, they each have a restaurant and shops and musicians and everything. We stopped to eat in France at the Boulangerie Paitisserie. We got some really puffy chocolate and cream pastries, and we did some wine tasting and tried perfumes. In this picture, Jonathon is sitting at the table where we ate our pastries. The lake is behind him.

The view across the lake

Another couple offered to take our picture in Japan. I was so bummed that it turned out blurry!

I wanted to eat in the Japanese restaurant, Teppan Edo, but it was insanely busy. I am not a fan of sushi but the other stuff all smelled really good. I had to settle for shopping, and we sat and ate lemon slushies in front of this pagoda.

Magic Kingdom- Part 2

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We spent two whole days in the Magic Kingdom, and part of another day. We had plenty of time to see everything we wanted to see. We were able to move quickly since it was just two adults and we didn’t have to take lots of breaks or visit with all the characters. Also, we didn’t go into the Toon Town Fair area at all. It’s basically a kid area- in fact, last time I went to Disney World with my family, it was called Mickey’s Birthdayland.

I think my favorite area of the Magic Kingdom has always been Tomorrowland. You can get to it by going to the right, even before you walk through the castle. This is what we did the first day. Sometime worth knowing- there are almost never characters in Tomorrowland.

Probably the most well-known attraction in Tomorrowland is Space Mountain. Last time we went to Disney, according to my mom I went on it something crazy like 17 times in a row. (My family always went during the slow season when there weren’t lines for rides). I forgot how much of that ride was in the complete dark with just stars. For some reason I remembered being able to see more things like planets in it. I don’t know whether the ride was changed at all or if my memory is failing me. Jonathan was initially a little apprehensive about Space Mountain. He remembered going on it as a kid and not being crazy about it. But we did it, and it was fun! We ended up going on it several times during our visit. The first time, I was in the first car in our little train. If you are looking for a more intense experience, that’s the way to go. You feel like you are really shooting through space and you cannot see ANYTHING in front of you. At least if you are even one car back, you can see the glow in the dark paint on the cars in front of you!

The other thing that we went on several times in Tomorrowland was Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. The name is a little deceptive, because there is nothing spinning about it. You can turn your cart to face different directions, but that’s about it. It is a laser gun game, and it’s pretty fun. You can ride two to a car and it keeps score for you right below your gun. If you are serious about this ride, I would recommend riding one to a car. The guns on the left side never seem to work as well, and you can’t get quite as good of a shot at some of the targets.

We ate lunch at a great (air-conditioned, indoor) restaurant called Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe. We used a counter service meal from our dining plan and we were both stuffed. Double cheeseburgers, fries, sodas, carrot cake for me and triple chocolate cake for Jonathan. Mmmm I miss Disney food. Heck, I miss food. We have nothing to eat in this house!

We rode on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority after eating. If that doesn’t sound familiar, it used to be called The PeopleMover. It’s a slow-moving ride that winds through Tomorrowland about 20 feet in the air. You can get an overview of a bunch of the rides, and you even ride through part of Space Mountain. It was nice and relaxing but not something I would want to do more than once or twice. We skipped the Carousel of Progress and one other ride.

The one thing I would NOT recommend in Tomorrowland is Stitch’s Big Escape. Biggest waste of time EVER, in my opinion. They tell you that it’s a ride and not to go on it immediately after eating. Well, it is NOT a ride whatsoever. First you go into a room where you stand and watch a show, mostly on tv screens but also with an animatronic Stitch. Then you go into a circular room where you sit in roller coaster type seats facing inward, and pull the shoulder restraint down. WHY the shoulder restraint if it’s not a ride? Probably so you can’t run away out of boredom. Literally, the thing NEVER moves. Can you tell I am still annoyed by this? You sit in there for about fifteen minutes while Stitch jabbers at you. The lights go out and you hear him “running” around the room. You get sprayed with water a few times when he is supposedly spitting on you. Then, the lights come back on, the shoulder restraint lifts, and the wannabe-ride is over.

One thing that I knew was gone, but that I was still sad about, was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. If you remember that ride, click the link and read what happened to it.

We had a chance to see several parades while in the Magic Kingdom. This was the Dreams Come True parade. It is daily at 3 pm, starting in Frontierland and going all the way to Main Street. If you have kids who want to see, it’s a good idea to get a spot early. They rope off the parade route and people start waiting with cameras in hand about a half hour prior to the start of the parade. We just walked up as it was starting but I was still able to see a lot of it.

I’m not really sure of the logic behind this, but that’s Mary Poppins on the back of the Aladdin float.

Ariel and Prince Eric- I told Jonathan he’s going to have to study up on his Disney Princesses before Bailey gets older

Magic Kingdom- Part 1

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I am already planning on having more than one post about the Magic Kingdom because I know I will get tired of typing partway through this. I’m just in that kind of mood. But I wanted to post about this park first, because in my opinion it’s the most exciting!

There are a few important things to know about the parks when you are booking a trip to Disney World.

1. The more days you stay, the cheaper it gets per day. Like for us to add a sixth day to our tickets, it was only three dollars more per person. So taking a long vacation doesn’t really cost a WHOLE lot more, except for lodging. It’s feasible to take a long trip to Disney World and it will let you do everything at a much more relaxed pace.

2. The park tickets are called Magic Your Way tickets. The first level is a Magic Your Way Base Ticket. This allows you to visit one park per day, either Magic Kingdom (MK), Epcot, Hollywood Studios, or Animal Kingdom. The next thing to add to that is a Park Hopper option. This costs a flat rate of about $60 per person regardless of how long your stay is. The Park Hopper lets you visit as many parks as you would like in one day. That makes it convenient if you want to have breakfast with Cinderella, then go to Epcot later because they have extended hours, or something like that. The next option is to add waterpark privileges to your tickets. The two waterparks are Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach. Although I have been to TL in the past and I think it’s an amazing park, we didn’t have this option on our trip. It adds about $50 per person to include waterparks on your tickets.

3. Fastpass- These are great! You can go to a popular ride and insert your card (called Key to the World, it’s like a credit card and works as your room key, tickets, and meal plan). The Fastpass machine spits out a little ticket stub with a time printed on it- usually a one hour range- and if you go back during that time then you go through a separate Fastpass Line and walk almost right to the front of the other line. You can only have one Fastpass at once so you have to either use it or let it expire before printing another one. Also, they only print a certain amount of Fastpasses for each time period and they can run out partway through the day. This happened to us on one ride.

4. Eat meals slightly off of the normal mealtime. You’ll have a short wait to get your food and then while everyone else is eating, you can do the more popular rides or shows and have shorter lines for those. Sounds simple, but obviously most people don’t do it!

5. Find out before your trip which parks have Extra Magic Hours which day. Each day, at least one park opens one hour early or stays open up to three hours late. Only guests staying at Disney Resorts can stay in the parks during the Extra Magic Hours. It allows you longer in the park, which is nice because the temperature drops quite a bit in the evening and its much more pleasant. Also, the lines are shorter.

Okay, about Magic Kingdom. When you first enter the park, you are on Main Street U.S.A. There are not any rides on Main Street, but it’s a great place to shop. The stores along each side of the street almost all connect to each other. If it’s hot out, walk through the stores instead of down the street. Main Street is also the path for various parades and shows. This was part of a morning parade.

We watched a group called the Dapper Dans perform. I thought it was going to be boring, but they turned out to be really interesting. They played musical instruments and tapped danced and sang.

One thing that is definitely not to miss is the Main Street Bakery. Yummy pastries! If you time it right you can eat breakfast while watching the 10 a.m. parade, if there is one that day. Or have a snack around 3 and then catch the afternoon parade. Another place on Main Street that we ate was the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor. We each got a double scoop cone (Edy’s) and it was more than we could eat. Well, Jonathan finished it, but he was even struggling by the end.

Here we are standing in the middle of Main Street, with Cinderella’s Castle behind us. By the way, you can now stay in the Princess Suite in the castle! It’s only like 8 million dollars a night, though.

A view from the back of Cinderella’s Castle

Right after you walk through Cinderella’s Castle, if you look to the left there is a store called Tinkerbell’s Treasures. This was my favorite store in the MK. It’s really girly and fun. All kinds of princess costumes, hair pretties, jewelry, etc. I actually bought a set of hair clippies there because my bangs wouldn’t stay back in my ponytail and they were driving me crazy. So I sported a Disney Princess clip in my hair most days during our trip. I figured at least Bailey could wear them once we were home. Check it out-

Disney- Pop Century Resort

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I guess the most logical place to start talking about our Disney trip is with our resort. Since that’s the first place we went to, other than the Orlando airport. Which is fairly disorganized and slow, compared to the STL airport, at least while we were there.

The resort we stayed in was Pop Century. It is one of the cheapest Disney resorts (the other being All-Stars) but it was fine for what we wanted. I knew we would not be in the room other than to sleep and get ready in the morning, so I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on accommodations. It might be different in a few years when we have kids who need naps and when we will need more down time at the resort. But we knew we definitely wanted to stay on property.

There are a few perks to staying at a Disney resort versus a random hotel.

First, you get free transportation. This includes both to/from the airport, and also to/from all the theme parks and in between parks. The transportation from the airport is called Disney’s Magical Express. You stand on a red carpet while waiting to board the bus to your resort. This part of the airport was actually very organized. In fact, EVERYTHING about Disney is organized down to the minute. That is one of the great things about Disney. Also, you don’t have to go through baggage claim. They get your luggage for you and it magically shows up in your room within three hours. And you don’t have to sit and wait in your room for it. We were able to drop our carry-ons in our room and head out to a park right away.

Second, you can get the Disney Dining Plan. For a fixed cost, you get a snack, a counter service meal (fast food), and a table service meal (sit down) for each person, for each day of your stay. We were lucky and got the dining plan for free as part of a special promotion. Jonathan is a big eater and he was nervous that it wouldn’t be enough food for him. I planned on spending a lot of extra money on food. Well, we only bought one snack and a few drinks outside of our dining plan. We were able to do several character dining experiences and international restaurants at Epcot, too. We brought stuff like granola bars and small boxes of cereal for breakfast but otherwise we ate out all the time.

And the third great thing about staying at a Disney resort? The Disney-ness. Including the over-the-top theming and special touches on everything, and the staff (called Cast Members throughout Disney World). Nothing is left for you to figure out on your own. You don’t have to bug them for anything. They are a step ahead of you the whole way. Even housekeeping (a.k.a. Mousekeeping) left us cute surprises in our room almost every day!

Our resort, Pop Century, had a theme of American Pop Culture from 1950-1999. There were lots of great things to look at from each decade, under glass in the main building. I know that sounds boring and historical but it was really fun to see toys from when I was little, and things we remembered our parents talking about. I wish I had taken pictures. This picture was on the last day when Jonathan declined the use of Luggage Assistance but it’s the only one where you can see the inside of park of the resort.

There were also five sections of buildings with guest rooms- one for each decade. We were in the 90s one and I have to say it was the least exciting. It was mostly cell phones and a giant laptop and stuff like that. Each section also had its own pool that also went along with the theme. Here is the view facing the building we stayed in.

We also went swimming one afternoon in the 60s pool. I thought this was the most fun area in the resort. It had a “groovy” shaped pool, whatever that is. There were also giant flower fountains spraying different areas of the pool. And a poolside bar called Petals. A few shots of the area around the pool and then one of me swimming. Notice I am only visible from the shoulders up while wearing a bathing suit. There’s a reason for that, folks. You should thank me.

Our resort also had a giant cafeteria with a lot of different food options, like Italian and Asian and hamburgers and sandwiches and stuff. We got a refillable mug for $12.49 and I would recommend that to anyone staying on site. You get unlimited free refills at any resort during your visit. And it’s a cute plastic souvenir mug with a lid.

There was also an arcade area. We used it for about an hour the last day of our trip, while we were waiting to check in for the bus to the airport. We spent about $10 and redeemed our tickets for two mini containers of play-doh for Bailey. Which probably would have cost under $1 at the store, but we had fun.

Me and my honey in front of the resort- we got pretty good at the self-portraits during our trip. Of course he had a hard time being serious since I couldn’t look over and see his face while taking the picture.

We’re Home!

Filed Under Birthdays, Disney Vacation | 5 Comments

Just a quick post to say that we made it home safely from Orlando. I have lots to do to catch up here. Balance checkbook, sort Avon, grocery shop, laundry, etc. Of course I hope to be able to pop on the computer a few times here and there

I have a ton of pictures I am going to post from our trip over the next few days or so. I can’t believe how many we took. we had an amazing time. I missed Bailey, but it wasn’t horrible. We were so busy most of the time, and then we’d see a kid her age and talk about her for a minute. The last day I started getting REALLY excited to get home and see her. She met us at the airport with my parents, holding a birthday balloon for me! I turned 28 while we were on vacation. I’m old.

Here’s a shot of Cinderella’s Castle. I haven’t even had a chance to go through all the pictures yet… More later!

Guess where we are!!

Filed Under Disney Vacation, Sixteen Months | 1 Comment

EDITED TO ADD: I had this scheduled to post while we were on our trip. I don’t know why it didn’t post… I knew you would all be wondering where I was for so long. We were in Orlando for a week, and we are home now. So this was supposed to post like five days ago. Stupid WordPress…

That’s right, we’re in Disney World. I knew you couldn’t live without me, so I wrote this ahead of time and scheduled it to post while we’re gone. Today we are at the Magic Kingdom and we even have a character meal today. We’ll be taking lots of pictures so I can bore you to death with them after we get home.

In the meantime, here’s the muffin

Talk to you in a few days!

Flutteries in my Tummy

Filed Under Difficult Stuff, Disney Vacation | 4 Comments

As our vacation gets closer I am thinking more and more about the planning I need to do. My mom is going to be staying at our house so part of me is freaking out about cleaning. Organizing cabinets, hiding stuff I don’t want her to see, scrubbing the kitchen floor. I also have to shop and make sure there is plenty of easy food for Bailey and also some fresh fruit and stuff cut up in the fridge and all that. Dishes clean, laundry clean etc before we go.

I am working on a schedule for my mom- not like I am forcing her to do a certain schedule but more like so she knows when Bailey has classes and stuff like that and when a friend of mine is going to come pick her up for the evening. Notes about Tylenol doses and where to find loveys and teethers and the special diaper cream. All the little things that Mommy does every day and I want to make sure someone else does the same thing. It is beyond me how people can leave their kid at daycare, I think I would fall apart. I know Bailey could not possibly be in better hands than with my mom. It’s not that. It’s that it won’t be ME doing these things for her, for almost a full week.

Will she miss me? Will she care? Will she wonder if I’m not coming back? Will I miss her so much I can’t stand it? I think JOnathon and I will have a great time but I am worried that when we’re not busy my heart will just be so sad. My little Buggy and I will be apart for the longest time ever. I hope Grammy gives her so many kisses and tells her I love her and shows her my pictures and tells her I am coming back. And when I get back? I hope Bailey is as happy as I am.

How can I leave this little face?

It will be okay. I know it will be, deep down. I just can’t think for too long about Bailey, I have to think about Jonathon. And all the fun stuff we will be doing.