The Life of Riley: Our Disney Trip

Our Disney Trip

Well hello old blog of mine. I think of you often and wish I had someone to complete the task of moving my thoughts and memories onto these pages as I just can't ever get myself to take the time to do it. But, I regret letting it slip, and I know I will soon forget all of the cute things my kids say and do. I will wish so badly that I did take the time to write them down. So as I always say, I am going to try to be better about updating this blog. I am not making any promises on how often, but I am not letting it disappear into cyber space just yet.

What better way to jump back into blogging than a recap of our trip to Disney World! We had such a great time, and I know it is a trip I will always cherish. I was such a Disney rookie since I have not been since I was about 4 years old, and I really don't remember much from that trip. I can pretty much say that I spent lots of time planning and thinking about exactly what we would do each day, and once we got there we pretty much abandoned all laid out plans and just decided to go with the flow!

We were planning to do one park a day, skipping Epcot, and that was it. Well after the first day we loved Magic Kingdom so much and there was still so much to do, so we decided to buy the park hopper. I debated purchasing this before we left and wish I did (would have saved about $30). I just liked the idea of jumping around wherever we wanted to go. We did utilize the fast passes I scheduled, but we also were blessed with the Disney Magic and stumbled upon the fact that our wrist bands had unlimited fast passes. Yes, that is correct, we could jump on any ride in the fast pass line at any park, any time we wanted. This worked until the very end of our trip when we knew that meant it was time to go! This is part of the reason we went back to Magic Kingdom every day, because we knew we could accomplish a lot in a shorter amount of time.

We also managed to scoot by with no naps. I wasn't sure how this would work, but I can tell you Katelyn was not going to be doing any kind of sleeping during the day, and that ended up being just fine. We had a couple meltdown moments, but nothing too major. I had several dining reservations planned and we canceled all but one! We did eat at Chef Mickey which while very overpriced for the buffet food, the kids loved getting to meet all the characters. I would suggest one or two character meals, but definitely don't plan on them for every meal.

We even managed to see the fireworks one night which was a goal of mine. Katelyn was fast asleep in the stroller, and Brady joined her shortly after, but it was definitely worth staying out late for. There were SO many fun things we did, but I think our favorites were: Town Square Mickey, Splash Mountain and Space Mountain (for Brady and Paul), Peter Pan's flight, all the princess meet and greets, the carousel and magic carpet ride (for Katelyn), Killimajaro safari ride at Animal Kingdom, meeting Jake from "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" at Hollywood Studios, and Brady loved the pool at our hotel :). Oh, and let's not forget, Katelyn said her favorite ride was the bus!

We took about a million pictures, so I will just leave you with those!