 
   
Nov 1st - Epcot - The day started with an taxi ride to O'Hare, then a
nice long plane flight to Orlando. Poor Amy got stuck in the back of the plane in
the day care section with all the kids. The kids handled the flight perfectly fine,
but they did get a little bored and restless in the small area they had to sit for 3
hours.
When we got to Orlando, we used Disney's Magical Express so there was a bus there to take
us to our hotel and all our luggage would meet us in the room later on. We stayed at
the All-Star Movies resort which was super-nice, even though it was the cheapest possible
hotel that's on the Disney property. There's pics of it later on.
After eating some dinner, the weather was raining and lousy but we had planned to visit
Epcot so off we went. Unfortunately, when we got there, it was already 7pm and most
of the attractions were closed. We did go on the earth ride that's inside the big
sphere and the boat ride inside the Mexico shops. The kids also enjoyed playing in
the rain as you can see above.
The last part of the day was to enjoy the nightly Epcot fireworks. The show was
quite excellent but by this point, the kids were very tired, it was still raining and all
the loud bangs scared them. Once the show was over, it was back to the hotel and on
to bed. A very long first day finally complete.
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Nov 2nd - MGM Studios - We used our first full day at Disney to visit MGM
Studios. We decided to go here first since we knew that once the kids saw the Magic
Kingdom, they wouldn't want to go to any other park. The above pictures show the
entrance and Main street at MGM.
   
The first area we went was basically straight back from the entrance and featured the
Voyage of the Little Mermaid show. Both of the kids were scared going into a
darkened theater but calmed down once the show started. They really enjoyed it.
Across the way was the Disney Playhouse show area which featured Bear in the Big
Blue House (I think that's the name... our kids don't watch that show) but they also had a
kewl Winnie the Pooh part at the end which is pictured above.
 
Here's one of the streets at MGM with Tower of Terror in the background.
  
   
   
The next show we saw was a live stage performance of Beauty and the Beast. Because
Grandma Kay is considered disabled, we were able to get seats right in the front. It
was a very good show and since the kids know the story of Beauty and the Beast very well,
they sat quietly and enjoyed the whole thing.
   
 
Ah... finally something for the adults. On the left is a picture of the boarded up
entrance to the Aerosmith Rock and Roller Coaster which was closed. Bummer.
Tower of Terror was open though and Amy and I decided to go on it. A couple weeks
before our trip, Amy found out she was pregnant and although you arne't supposed to go on
the rides if you're pregnant, she was only 6 weeks or so and went on anyway. For
all the hype on how scary the ride is, Tower of Terror is really more interesting than it
is scary... I guess it depends on what scares you. Basically all that happens
is you take a car up an elevator a few levels, you see some trippy Twilight Zone stuff,
then you travel in your car across the floor. On the other side, you lock into a
lift / drop mechanism which then randomly drops and lifts you 7-8 times. It's mostly
pitch black except for the windows near the top... of course, it's super bright
when you pass the windows. The stopping and starting was really smooth though... no
jerkiness or anything. It was actually kind of pleasant... hehe.
  
Every Disney park has parades and MGM is no exception. Here's Jacob and Melissa
checking out the movie themed parade.
   
We ate dinner at a kewl drive-in move style place called the Sci-Fi something or other.
They had old bizarre sci-fi clips playing on the movie screen and the cars had
tables in them. It was a very kewl atmosphere which the kids and the adults enjoyed.
  
Last few pictures at MGM. In the far back, there's streets set up to look like
cities. I was trying to take the kids back to a Honey I Shunk the Kids playland but
they closed it at 5pm. That's something to watch out for when going to Disney...
not all rides are open all day. Many close early and if you don't plan for
it, you can miss the ride you want.
On the right above is the Star Wars ride which is a motion simulator type ride which I
actually thought was pretty lame for a Star Wars ride. Oh well. MGM was still
a kewl place.
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Late that night back at the hotel, I wandered around taking pictures of the various themed
hotel areas. We stayed at the All Star Movies Resort and it was very reasonably
priced and really well maintained. Above you can see the 101 Dalmation themed hotel
and the Toy Story themed hotel. We stayed in the Fantasia themed hotel - there's
pictures of that later. Besides those three, they also had a Mighty Ducks hotel, a
Herbie hotel and another one that I can't remember. There was a big cafeteria for
food and a big pool for swimming. I really enjoyed the hotel and would have no
issues staying there again. |
 
 
Nov 3rd - The Magic Kingdom - Finally... what we've all been waiting for,
the Magic Kingdom. The kids started off a little grumpy as they didn't understand
what was waiting for them inside.
   
 
Main street Disney with Mickey and Cinderella's castle in the background. The kids
absolutely loved the castle... not that it was a suprise. Cinderella is one of
Melissa's favorite stories so she was very excited to be here.
   
 
They have a short show at the castle called Cinderellabration which featured all of the
Disney princesses. Needless to say, the kids loved this too.
   
Some views of the main kids area behind Cinderella's castle. We spent more time in
this area than anywhere else since it has the Dumbo ride, the Snow White ride, the Winnie
the Pooh ride and the Peter Pan ride and It's a Small World are right next door too.
Quite a packed little area! Above you can also see the carosel and Ariel's
Grotto where you can wait a half hour to meet Ariel. We didn't wait.
   
  
Ah, the most enjoyable ride at Disney... the waiting in line ride! The kids weren't
big fans of waiting and got restless pretty quickly so it was a challenge getting them to
cooperate in line, but they did pretty good. Above is a few pictures of the Dumbo
ride which the kids rode with their mommy.
  
Here we all are on the carosel ride.
 
Here's the Snow White ride which was a little scary but the kids did pretty well.
  
The ever popular, It's a Small World ride. This one was one of Melissa's favorites
and there's lots and lots more pictures of this later.
  
For some reason, Melissa really liked this Peter Pan ride too. She made us go on it
twice for her. You sit in a boat that is suspened from a ceiling track so you
"fly" over all the scenary below. It is a pretty kewl ride but the kids
hardly ever watch Peter Pan so I'm a little surprised they liked this one so much, but
they did!
   
Winnie the Pooh - no surprise that they liked this one. I liked it too except for
the bouncy Tigger part. My back still hurts...
   
   
Very close to the Winnie the Pooh ride, they had a new Winnie the Pooh themed play area
with a tree house and lots of other things to play on. Melissa liked to play house
captain and be in charge of everything while Jacob kept to himself for the most part.
It was hard to get them out of there actually... they loved this area.
   
The race car ride... Melissa didn't quite get the concept so daddy drove.
These rides aren't as exciting as I remember when I was a kid.
  
It's getting dark and Jacob's getting tired. Amy and I went over to ride on Space
Mountain while Grandpa and Grandma took the kinds on the overhead tram ride. Space
Mountain wasn't as crazy as I've always heard, but it was a very good ride.
   
This is the Buzz Lightyear Universe Protection ride. This one is pretty kewl...
your car has light guns attached and you shoot at tons of targets scattered around
the ride. The car knows which light gun is yours and scores you on how well you do.
Very kewl concept which was well executed. The kids didn't really get the
shooting part, but they loved all the bright colors.
   
Cinderella's castle looks particularly nice at night.
   
On the way out, Melissa found a store with lots of weird hats and she enjoyed trying them
all on. Reminds me of Grandpa!
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Nov 4th - Magic Kingdom - these first pictures are in the morning right
outside of our hotel room. They had a number of little photo-op areas setup and the
closest was Donald and Daisy. The bottom show shows the hotel we stayed in.
The kids liked running through the hat which led to the elevators. The last two pics
showed the really nice pool in the center of all the hotels. Melissa really wanted
to go swimming but it was fairly cold at night so we never swam very long.
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Back at the Magic Kingdom... notice anything different? Yeah... the Christmas
decorations! They put them up overnight between the 3rd and the 4th cause they
certainly aren't in yesterday's pictures. Pretty bizarre and awfully early for
Christmas decorations isn't it?
  
We made our way over to Adventure Land today and found Timone and Rafiki hanging out...
the kids were being bad though and not co-operating for the picture. Oh well.
   
The Aladdin Magic Carpet ride which is amazingly similar to the Dumbo ride. Daddy
had a good time with the kids on this one while mommy relaxed.
   
   
 
Amy and I were able to steal a moment while the kids were watching a parade to go on Big
Thunder Mountain Railroad. It's pretty tame as far as roller coasters go but the
kids wanted no part of it. Amy and I had fun without them. ;-) The pics
above are walking away from Big Thunder Mountain and back towards the center of the Magic
Kingdom. They have a Tom Sawyer's Island in the middle of a lake and you have to
take a raft to get there... we passed on it but it made for some nice pics.
   
The old standards, It's a Small World and Peter Pan.
   
Here's the kids enjoying some pink cotton candy. Their tongues got very red so I
tried to get them to stick out their tongues for the camera and this is the result.
hehe!
   
  
In the far back corner of Disney World is an area called ToonTown which is actually quite
kewl. It had Mickey and Minnie's house, a huge store and lots of other attractions
geared more towards younger kids making it perfect for Melissa and Jacob.
   
Here's the inside of Minnie's house. Most of the activities were in the kitchen
where there were all kinds of interactive items for the kids to play with. Melissa
didn't want to ever leave. ;-)
   
If you remember at the start of yesterday's pictures, there's a shot of Mickey with a huge
line of people waiting to see him at the front of the park. Well, we discovered that
amazingly enough, Mickey is at his house in Toon Land too! There was no line at all
and we waited maybe a minute or two to get our picture taken with Mickey Mouse.
Awesome!
 
Even at Disney, Daddy has to squeeze in some train pictures... here's the Disney train
that goes all the way around the park.
   
Cinderalla's castle all lit up at night time and Main Street Disney with all the Christmas
lights.
  
We decided to take a monorail ride with everyone at the end of the day. I was
actually on the hunt for an internet connection so I could reload my Disney Rewards card
until I realized you can do it over the phone. Oops. The train ride was fun
anyway and the hotel we stopped at was really nice!
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Nov 5th - Animal Kingdom - On Saturday, we planned to avoid Magic Kingdom
at all costs since it is much more crowded on weekends. Animal Kingdom turned out to
be a great alternative as the crowds weren't quite as bad there. Here's the
entrance, also already decorated for Christmas.
  
More entrance pictures. The tree in the middle is supposed to be the Tree of Life
from Bugs Life and if you look really closely in the right pic, you can see Lilo and
Stitch taking pictures with people. Inside the Tree of Life, they have a very kewl
3d movie presentation with smell effects, rain and everything. Definitely worth
seeing.
   
Minnie! We went to the Lion King show first since it tends to fill up fast.
The show was very good and when the show was over, all the characters were hanging out in
their own little areas right outside the Lion King theater... so we got to meet Minnie
with very little wait as well. It's good to be lucky!
 
Random strangers getting their picture taken with Goofy and Pluto.
  
Misc pictures... the big white mountain in the left pic is actually part of a new ride
they are currently developing. I think it's scheduled to open in 2006 sometime.
  
  
Some pictures from the African Safari ride. They basically have a huge open-range
zoo in the back and they take you through on all-terrain trucks. Pretty kewl
experience.
   
Here's DinoLand USA which featured a huge enclosed playground the kids could play in... we
let them play in there for quite a long time as Animal Kingdom doesn't have a lot of
kid-centric rides. For some reason, Melissa really, really wanted to go on the
Primevil Whirl ride and was distraught when she was too short to meet the height
requirement, although it was probably a good thing... I think the ride would have
scared her much more than she thought.
  
Here's Jacob being tired and Melissa throwing a tantrum at Disney... happiest place on
earth? Not at the moment...
 
End of the day at Animal Kingdom. The park actually closed at 5pm so it was a pretty
early day for us, which was ok. There isn't *that* much to do at Animal Kingdom and
since we were leaving the next day, we had to pack and get organized anyway.
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Nov 6th - Magic Kingdom - For our last day in Disney, we went to Magic
Kingdom... and this is the day that confirmed that it was a bad idea it is to go here on
the weekend. We really didn't have very much time anyway as packing and taking care
of the flight arrangements took a lot of the morning and then making sure we left early
enough to make the flight home just didn't leave us a whole lot of time to be at the park.
We basically went on 2 rides - Small World and Peter Pan and then went home after
doing some final shopping.
   
Cinderella's castle looking really good with the bright blue sky as a backdrop.
   
The backside of Cinderella's castle and more the kids favorite area of the park.
   
   
 
   
 
   
 
   
 
   
 
   
If you've never been on the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney, check out the
above pictures... this is pretty much the entire ride. Enjoy!
  
The last couple pictures at the park. Little John from Robin Hood was at the front
by the bathrooms so Jacob got is picture taken while the girls were making their final
potty stop. The last picture on the right is from the bus stop area looking over to
the hotel that had the monorail stop inside. Next time, we're staying there!
(Yeah right).
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Since mommy took care of the kids on the way to Disney, daddy got them on the way home,
but daddy got the better end of the deal as the kids ended up sleeping most of the way.
All in all, we had a really great trip. The pictures really don't do it justice.. we
saw and experienced so much more than pictures can show. Disney does such a nice job
of catering to your every need and the kids loved every minute of it. There's so
much to do and see at Disney, even being there 6 days didn't really feel like enough.
The kids were very well behaved for the most part and everyone had a fabulous time.
I have to admit... it sure felt good to be home.
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