Life with Shawna: February 2013

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

WDW Recap

Well, we’ve been home a week and I have been such a good employee and mom that I am yet to write about our trip. Here goes! I narrowed my photos down to 618 and patiently await our PhotoPass CD for more.

We rented DVC points and stayed at the Animal Kingdom – Kidani Village. What a place! Our view was of the main entrance but that did not deter us from checking out the animals in the huge bay windows during our walk to the elevator to the garage under the hotel. Our room was nice, with a queen bed and pullout. I have to say the pullout was quite durable as the boys pretended it was a trampoline. The attention to detail all through the room was nice.

See other posts for each of the parks:

Animal Kingdom

EPCOT
Hollywood Studios
Magic Kingdom

We wrapped up our extra-long weekend with Chef Mickey! After having Tusker House and Hollywood and Vine, this is no longer our favorite. H&V whips up an omelet for you without a special request. We still love Mickey and pals but will probably skip CM next time.

Magic Kingdom

We love Mickey! Which is our first stop of many. We ventured into the Magic Kingdom three of the four days we spent in the parks. Oh the fun of the ParkHopper option.

Oh and the princesses, they had no idea what was coming their way. W never stopped talking to Rapunzel and H just stood in wonder. W then ran circles around Aurora but then loved on Cinderella. I prepped them by watching Tangled and Beauty and the Beast multiple times leading up to our trip.

Best of all was Enchanted Tales with Belle where W got to be a magic mirror and H a spoon and a fork. In the end Belle posed for photos with each and kissed W on the cheek! Oh the excitement, he was giddy for an hour. And it was truly enchanting for this mom that love Beauty and the Beast.

We took in the fireworks, parades, and the new Fantasyland and loved just about all of it. On Sunday, we began to realize there was a lot of purple and gold invading the magic land. Come to find out the schools in Louisiana have break for Mardi Gras. Needless to say, we were taken over by LSU fans, they were everywhere.

Anyway, we love the balloons, Gaston’s Tavern and Dumbo!

Ariel’s new ride was nice, the carousel was fun, but W really enjoyed Mickey’s Philharmagic!

A few bonuses:

Main Street from the Train Station

Beast’s castle from Maurice’s cottage

Cinderella’s castle from Fantasyland

Main Street from Cinderella’s castle

Animal Kingdom

We love the AK, with all the shade and nature. First up is always the Safari where the boys are entertained with the animals and my camera never leaves ready position. I have learned to limit my photo taking as I can come away from one ride with 200. This time I narrowed it down to only 30. We saw plenty of giraffes, birds, and elephants . . . the lions were fast asleep and did not even peak over the edge at us.

More favorites include the drums, parade and Everest. The parents love Everest; we go through the Single Rider line. For those of you with small children, you can get a parent switch pass but one of you has to go through the main line then the second can go through the FastPass line. You can take up to 3 per ticket.

More fun adventures await in Dino land and don’t miss the Nemo live show or It’s Tough to be a Bug (under the tree).

Hollywood Studios

This was the longest day, EVER! We began with Jake and the Disney Junior pals at Hollywood and Vine for breakfast and did not leave until after the UCA Cheerleading semi-finals were over. That would be about 13 hours. Man did it take it’s toll the next day. Advice to all parents, don’t do it! Don’t spend all day without taking a break.

We FastPassed Toy Story Mania, W loved Star Tours, sat at the beginning of the parade (ground view is the best view), watched Beauty and the Beast, and one of us took on Tower of Terror (not me).

The boys sported their Arkansas sweatshirts the morning of Hollywood Studios and the nights in the Magic Kingdom (hey I let them wear their Ole Miss shirts the first day).