Disney!

We had so much fun at Disney this past week! I can't imagine a better place to take a family vacation with kids.

We had perfect weather (not too hot, not too cool), and it wasn't crowded at all. The rides we wanted to do either offered Fast Passes (which were very easy to get), or usually had only 5- to 10-minute waits. We stayed at the Wilderness Lodge, the least expensive of the deluxe resorts, and I think that was a really good choice. And the Disney Dining Plan was great. It was an INSANE amount of food. It was actually way too much food, so I don't think we would ever want to pay for it in the future, but since it was free this month, it made the trip a good bargain. We only paid for two meals the entire six days we were there, and that was because they were places we really wanted to go. With more careful planning and using our snack allotments for breakfast, we could have eaten entirely for free, all six days.


A lot of the rides were just too scary for poor Claire, but of course, she's a bit of a scaredy cat. : ) She didn't even like the 3D movies and ended up taking off her 3D glasses because it was too intense for her. She also tended not to like the rides that were very dark, such as the Peter Pan ride and the Pooh ride, both of which I think would be wonderful for most kids her age.  And we made her go on a lot of these rides anyway. : ) She was horrified by both Pirates of Caribbean (which is very different from the Pirates of the Caribbean I remember), and "Maelstrom" at Epcot, which is supposed to be a Viking ship. Apparently Claire doesn't have much of a sailing career ahead of her.

Claire did, however, love the classic Disney rides, like the Mad Tea Party teacups, It's a Small World, the Dumbo ride (which we must have done at least 10 times), the Aladdin Flying Carpets (Dumbo ride but with carpets and spitting camels), and the Flying Triceratops at Animal Kingdom (Dumbo but with dinosaurs). She also liked the Finding Nemo ride at Epcot.

Elsa and Claire on the Dumbo ride.

Me and the girls on the Flying Triceratops.



Elsa and Bob on Aladdin's Flying Carpets.

Outside the Nemo ride.


Elsa and Bob on the Nemo ride.

Elsa loved most of the rides we tried, including some of the bigger-kid ones. One of her favorites was Big Thunder Mountain at the Magic Kingdom, which I thought was the perfect roller coaster for her. Big Thunder Mountain is fast and goes around lots of curves and over small hills, but there are no steep, dramatic downhill drops, which is what freaks her out. In fact, she liked Big Thunder Mountain more than than Goofy's Barnstormer, which is a roller coaster meant specifically for little kids. But the Barnstormer does have a steep (but smallish) hill, and Elsa just wasn't crazy about that.

Other favorites included the Mission Space ride at Epcot (a space-flight simulator—we did the "less intense" version), Soarin' at Epcot (which simulates hang-gliding in front of an IMAX screen showing various scenic locations in California), Splash Mountain at the Magic Kingdom (a log ride), and Kali River Rapids at Animal Kingdom (a white-water rafting ride). She went on both of the water rides two times each with Bob. And when we got off the Soarin' ride, she said, "I can't believe that was just a movie screen!"

Elsa and Bob on Kali River Rapids.

And here they are after Kali River Rapids, soaked but happy! She wanted to go right back on it a second time!

Both girls loved the Toy Story ride at Hollywood Studios, especially Elsa. It's a fun ride where you wear 3D glasses and shoot at targets while whipping around in cars. That was one of the few rides we went on that had huge lines, in spite of the low crowds. But both days that we went to Hollywood Studios, we were there first thing when the park opened, and Bob ran to the ride to get our Fast Pass as soon as we got through the gates (he claimed he was a hero for doing that, and he kind of was!). So in both cases, our Fast Pass for the Toy Story ride was for the 10:45 to noon range, which worked out perfectly. We felt like we lucked out with that one. (Although I have to wonder why the lines are SO long for this particular ride—it's fun, but I can't imagine why people would wait in line for more than hour to go on it. I swear it's only because there are so few little-kid rides at Hollywood Studios.)


Elsa enjoying the Toy Story ride.

Elsa was not so in love with Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom, which I thought was a very fun but surprisingly scary roller coaster. The guide book we were using said that it was scary, but gave it 3 1/2 stars for preschoolers, so we figured she could do it. I would strongly disagree with that 3 1/2-star rating! Elsa claimed she liked it, but definitely did not want to give it a second go. And she would not stop talking about the yeti that was supposedly tearing up the roller coaster tracks (a special effect made with shadows). When the coaster got to this "yeti" tearing up the tracks, we stopped and then went flying backwards through pitch-black tunnels. Definitely very scary, but Elsa was so brave about it!

Elsa in front of Expedition Everest.

Most of the Epcot rides left a little to be desired for all of us. Those tended to remind me of the Milwaukee Public Museum. It was Milwaukee Public Museum as seen from a boat, Milwaukee Public Museum as seen from a very slow train, Milwaukee Public Museum as seen from various other automated vehicles on tracks. You get the idea. : )

Along with the character dining that we did (see next post), other restaurants we liked were the Coral Reef restaurant, where you eat surrounded by gigantic aquariums; Via Napoli at Epcot, where we had real Italian pizza; and the Biergarten German restaurant at Epcot.

The girls at the Coral Reef restaurant.

The Biergarten was set up inside a building that was made to look like it was outdoors (ceiling painted to look like the sky, etc.), so I had to wonder why they didn't just have it outdoors for real! It's Florida, after all. We were also disappointed at the very short sets played by the German band at the Biergarten, but we might be spoiled by the Bavarian Inn's Oktoberfest. : )

Claire at the German store at Epcot.

The World Showcase area of Epcot is cool—it's very pretty, and appears to have tons of good international food choices. But the girls found it a little boring, and it was a lot of walking to get all the way around it. Plus, the International Food and Wine Festival was going on, so that area was packed while we were there with grown-ups who just wanted to eat and drink.

 

 Soda of the World at Epcot. The Israeli one was pretty good, not too sweet. The rest were gross.

On Halloween night, we went to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom. We loved it! The Halloween parade was a lot of fun for the girls, and the fireworks were amazing, way better than the "normal" fireworks that we saw on a couple of other nights at the Magic Kingdom. We stood in a plaza in Fantasyland behind Cinderella's Castle to watch the fireworks, which was coordinated to songs sung by villains from Disney movies. There were fireworks going off literally 360 degrees around us as we stood in the plaza, and it got so bright during the finale that it was as light as day. And yet, the fireworks definitely didn't seem as loud as they do at home for Fourth of July—leave it to Disney to figure out what kids like about fireworks and what they sometimes don't! We also really liked the Electric Light Parade on another night in the Magic Kingdom.

Another cool thing we did was the animation clinic at Hollywood Studios. We got to vote on which character the animator taught us how to draw, and the results of the vote were for Rapunzel. Only after Rapunzel was voted in did the animator tell us that she was the hardest character to draw. : )


Elsa at the Animation Clinic at Hollywood Studios.

Elsa was a little frustrated by her inability to make Rapunzel look just like she does in the movie, but I think she enjoyed it anyway, and I thought she did great!


Here are Elsa's and Claire's Rapunzels ...

And here's mine. It's Crazy Eyes Rapunzel. : )

Although the 3D shows were a little intense for Claire, the rest of us really enjoyed them! They're a lot better than a normal 3D movie, and of course they also include strategically-timed water mistings, mist, bugs descending from ceilings, etc.


Elsa gets ready for a 3D show.


Elsa eating the most insane ice-cream-cookie sandwich ever. This was classified as "a snack" on the Disney Dining Plan!!


I even got a little writing done for the book at the Wilderness Lodge pool, while Bob and the girls were swimming.

Pool fun.


Silly Claire.

Elsa turned into a fish on this trip.


The housekeeping staff at the Wilderness Lodge had a little fun with us one day—they used Elsa's Rapunzel costume braid and her tennis shoes to make this little tableau. LOL.


Having some ice cream with a view of Cinderella's Castle.

So, we had a really fun time at Disney. I hope we'll be able to get back there again in future years, since there really are things to do for kids of all ages, and I think they'll get something different out of it if we go back later.