Disney, Part 6 of 6

Today was our last day, and we went out with a bang!  Literally, we were watching fireworks at midnight just before heading back to our room!  We did Mickey's A Very Merry Christmas Party tonight, so we went back to the room after lunch for naps, so that we would be able to stay out later.

 I just love this next picture :)

 Most magical experience right here!  Kenadie and I were luckily the ones who Aladdin and Jasmine rode the magic carpets with!!!  They do this once a day, and it just so happened to be with us!  She's a little too young to appreciate that this kind of stuff just doesn't happen every day, but I sure did :)

 Then, we were whisked away to the front of the line where their character greeting spot is!

 Jungle Cruise

Cinderella's Royal Table for lunch, where we were also dining with Neil Patrick Harris and company... not nearly as impressive as riding with Aladdin and Jasmine, if you ask me, just noting something that happened today! 

 Awww...

 And this is where we have returned back to Magic Kingdom after our naps to attempt to stay out til midnight :)

LOVED Enchanted Tales with Belle!

 

 

 All ready for the Christmas Parade!

 Tired, but still waving to anything that crosses her line of vision.

We made it to midnight, and this is how we left that night :)  

Super fun trip!  Already planning our next visit :)

Part 5 of 6 (Sea World)

We love Sea World!!!  This would definitely be my second favorite day of our trip, Magic Kingdom "take 2" being first!  This was our second time to go to Sea World, and I just think I may not be able to go to Orlando without squeezing a day in!  The shows were great, but the crowds, or lack there of, were even better!

 We loved meeting Santa at the North Pole when we got off the Polar Express!  Quite neat and totally unexpected!  We also saw a polar bear and walrus hanging out near Santa!

Feeding the sea lions!

Oh the joys of being inside a snow globe!  This would typically be something that I would say to Aaron, "Oh you go ahead dear, I will watch from here and get my pictures, make sure no one blinks!"  Not the case this time, friends!  I was joining in on the fun!  I could have, however, done without the thousands of pieces of tiny shredded up plastic, aka snow, all tangled up in my hair!!!

 The whole point of it all was just to get a quick picture, taken by that lady in red there, that they would then gladly sell you for, oh say, $30.  My mom's with my camera will do just fine, thank you :)  Below is me attempting to stop laughing, just long enough, to get Kenadie to stop laughing, just long enough, so the lady in red can take our picture, so that we will exit the snow globe, so that the other 20 people in line behind us can have a turn too! :)  What can I say...we just don't see that much snow in Mississippi!  We have to take whatever we can get, even if it is shredded up particles of a Walmart bag...

 And, to put your mind at ease, Sea World isn't just over there trashing the universe, the plastic "melts" in "due" time.  I will add that I must have come out of the snow globe with 2,325 pieces in my hair!

Kenadie was responsible for tossing the "snow" up for us :)

 Time to leave...

Don't you just love offering to take another family's picture for them, and then strategically placing your family down the way some, in hopes that they offer to take yours :)  Works every time :)

 Forget the bloody, orange juice stained Minnie Mouse shirts, this unplanned picture was one of two featured in my Christmas card :)

 And here's a candid one for you!  Since you know what we look like posed, here is what we look like the majority of the time :)

And this is what Aaron looks like when he rides a kiddie train!  I laughed so hard I was crying!  The girls are in the caboose, so it looks like he's riding by himself!  He proudly waved to me EVERY.SINGLE.TIME he made his way around the track!

Have no fear!  Berkley met the height requirement!  This little ride only took you up a little ways, and then down.  That's some contraption, huh?  They are serious at Sea World about the safety of their guests :)

Stay tuned for one last Disney post!  It was by far the most magical of all our days :)

Disney, Part 4 of 6 (Animal Kingdom)

Today, we were at Animal Kingdom, and we had a great day!!! And, I'm still wishing my pictures weren't fuzzy on blogger???

 Love at first sight...

 Animal Kingdom is the park to meet/greet characters!  The lines aren't bad at all!

 Ok, so, wouldn't you know there's a story to go along with the hat Kenadie is wearing in the following pic!  On our way to AK, we talked about all the things we would do/see while we were there.  After telling about the safari we would go on, she asked "Will we get to wear a safari hat?"  Those poor little disappointed eyes were heartbroken when I told her we wouldn't :(  I was sure the tears were coming!  Well, like most 5 year olds do, they get their mind set on something, and the next thing I know, Kay Kay has promised her a safari hat, that we spend no less than 1 hour trying to find/make up our mind on, and a whopping $30 later, we've got ourselves one pumped little girl who never removes the thing for the rest of the day!!!  Not one ounce of exaggeration here!  She IS a true girl :) and her entire fan club remained patient throughout the entire hat shopping extravaganza!  

Reason #931 to take a baby to Disney World... They enthusiastically wave like there's no tomorrow at every.single.character/float/parade attendant/piece of gum on ground etc. in every.single.parade!  Priceless!!! 

 Why not pay for a carousel ride that's half the size of the one you just rode at MK for "free"?

 Above pic, Downtown Disney where we ate dinner at Rainforest Cafe.  FYI, Rainforest, as well as any other restaurant on Disney property, is now included in the dining plan.

Disney, Part 3 of 6 (MK)

With today being New Year's, you'll never believe what my New Year's resolution is... to take LESS pictures!  That's right!  I take way too many pictures, which is getting me way behind on my scrapbooking!  I took 2,041 pictures in '12... so my goal is to cut that number by 500... And, that's with me deleting the ones that didn't pass my level of expectation!

I am happy to report, I didn't take many pictures our second day :)  I guess that's a good thing, because there were some parts of this day that I would have loved to have removed!  This was the one day of our trip that it was quite noticeable that someone was apparently giving out free Magic Kingdom passes!!!  Not really, but this day would make me vow to never go to Disney in Nov. again!  First off, we were about 20 minutes later than we needed to be getting out to the bus stop.  Then, there was this line that was worse than any line you would see out shopping on Black Friday!!!  We were also trying to get to breakfast at 1900 Park Fare, which meant we had to take a bus to Magic Kingdom, then get on the monorail to go to Grand Floridian.  We actually should have probably gotten in our car and driven there.  We only ended up being 45 minutes late!!!  Which, for our 9:20 breakfast, put us getting there at 10:05!!!  We FINALLY make it in to MK at 11:45, while Aaron makes a run to the transportation center to look for his lost glasses.

 Getting to MK at nearly 12:00 was NOT what I had planned!  Lesson learned, no more 9:20 breakfasts!  You either schedule no breakfasts at all, or you do them at 8:30, meaning you leave your room at 7:30 trying to get there!  I ran us ragged doing things like that on our previous trip, so I wasn't making that mistake again!  Another suggestion would be to only do a breakfast that was inside a park.  We LOVE Tusker House at AK!  1900 Park Fare, where we were eating, is one stop away from Magic Kingdom on the monorail, but when you have to ride around the entire monorail to get there, it's not so grand when you're running 45 minutes late!

Regardless of how late we were, we enjoyed our breakfast with Pooh, Tigger, Mary Poppins, Alice and Mad Hatter!  I don't recommend being 45 minutes late to one of your scheduled meals, but in true magical-like Disney fashion, the hostesses welcomed us with open arms :) and didn't judge :) Or, at least they hid it quite well!

 As I was making an effort to get my Christmas card pic in these shirts that I spent 6 magical grueling hours doing... Kenadie ends up spilling orange juice all over the front of hers, and Berkley, by the end of the day, looked like something from a horror film with all the blood that collected on her adorable Minnie shirt...isn't that how things go?!? ;)

 Pretty sure I used an entire "Tide to go" pen on Kenadie's shirt... Yeah, that was BEFORE I knew Berkley was going to bite through her bottom lip while happily playing in Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood!

 Great picture here, right? :)  Thanks to our sunglasses, Kenadie's make-do shade and Berkley's snoozing! 

 Okay, so here is where I'm going to start speaking positive about our day :)  We did LOVE the new "Voyage of the Little Mermaid" ride!

 Happy girls, one who still has on a clean shirt!

And then the lip tragedy occurred... but she didn't seem to mind!  Her mommy, on the other hand, felt squeamish and faint!

Weeee... she loved the tea cups!!!

 But it was "Uuumbo" that was her most favorite!

They both gave out simultaneously at 5 pm!

 Reason #2 to go at Christmas...

 And here is where we ended the night with a great firework show/electrical lights parade, returned to our cozy beds and had a magical night's sleep!  Smooth sailing from here on out :)