Through the Looking Glass: Disney World

The other day I realized I never posted about our trip to Disney. I went to Disney twice as a kid but I barely remember either trip. I have been wanting to go back for years. At the end of last year Mark got on board with going in the spring. In January I started looking at our options. The trip ended up being cancelled and un-cancelled a couple of times. My last hope for fulfilling my Disney dreams was to get Nate and Scarlett on board with going. Mark wanted to go with another family so that we could ride the grown-up rides together (riding rides with someone and about 1,000 times more fun than just riding by yourself. I didn't realize this until we were at Disney and I said we could never go without other grown-ups again!). Nate and Scarlett decided a couple weeks before our planned trip (that was no longer planned) that they were on board!

Disney is the happiest place on earth and probably the most exhausting. Scarlett and I read tons of blogs about how to "do" Disney and Mark got a run down from our friend Justin (they are Disney pros). I had our days scheduled out so that we had a list of what rides to ride and when. We got to the parks by 8:30 at the latest each morning. Most of the parks don't open until 9. We went back to our hotels for naps on days 1 and 4. Days 2 and 3 were spent entirely at parks. Each day we went to 2 parks. The earliest we got back to our room each night was 10:30. One night we didn't get back until after midnight. It was so hard to get out of bed on the 3rd and 4th day. We were all exhausted.

Brigham and Aubree did amazingly well. Aubree took naps in the stroller and Brigham would nap at the hotel.

We never waited in a line for more than 20 minutes and we rode every ride at all 4 parks (except Splash Mountain because it was closed). My favorite ride was Everest in Animal Kingdom. Mark's favorite was Big Mountain Train (or something like that). He eventually changed his mind and decided Everest was his favorite as well. Brigham's favorite rides were Star Wars (Star Tours in Hollywood Studios), Buzz Light Near (Buzz Lightyear in Magic Kingdom), and the race cars/go garts in Magic Kingdom. He tells me almost daily that he wants to go back to Disney World and ride just 3 rides: Star Wars, Buzz Lightnear, and the go carts/race cars. Brigham was able to ride almost every ride with the help of some folded up paper towels in his shoes. He couldn't ride the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and Space Mountain. As far as I remember he rode everything else. The Rock 'n' Roller Coaster was my second favorite. It was so fun!

The weather was much colder than we anticipated so we were not quite as prepared as we could have been and that made the first 2 days a little bit less enjoyable. We were just all so cold. It was a great time of year for going to Disney and we will do it again but we will have coats with us next time. The weather forecast said it would be in the upper 60's to lower 70's on those days but it never reached those temperatures. Then on top of temperatures in the 50's it was windy and cloudy. I forgot Aubree's blanket on day 2 so I gave her my sweatshirt. Luckily days 3 and 4 were sunny and warm.

Mark had more fun than he ever expected and said we should go back every 2 years. That was music to my ears! I am excited that this will be a tradition for our family.

We stayed at a hotel that was just off the Disney property. Originally we were going to stay at a Disney Resort but I cancelled our reservation after discovering that the bathrooms were tiny. We needed a large enough bathroom to fit the pack and play in for Aubree to sleep. We ended up saving a ton of money and getting a free breakfast each day. We were on Disney property in less than a minute after leaving our hotel. It was great! I think staying at a resort would be fun so we could have the whole Disney magic experience but I don't think I will ever be able to justify the cost unless we are millionaires. ha ha

Now for the picture overlaod: