Our Family Vacation

Our trip to disney was years in the planning and was supposed to have occured last year. Even though we had to wait another year, our much anticipated adventure finally happened and it was amazing ! God blessed us with great weather, great health and great spirits to enjoy ourselves! We met my parents there and stayed with them at the resort in adjoining rooms. We planned 5 days in the parks, doing each of the 4 parks once and one additional day to visit the park we didn't get everything done at the first time !

Our first park day was in Hollywood Studios. We did just about everything in the park, minus the Tower of Terror, which none of us wanted to do. Felicia got her Poppy to ride Areosmaith's Rockin' Roller coaster, which I had to ride with her two more times that evening ! We saw Beauty and The Beast on stage and the stunt show, Indiana Jones, etc. Hollywood studios has a lot of shows, so it's tricky to see everything based on what time each thing starts. Thank goodness this park was open for extra hours in the evening so we could get it all in ! This park was the three older kids favorite park. Bethany and Sam were able to take a Disney animation drawing class here that was very cool.


Mickey in Fantasmic at Hollywood Studios
We tried to get back to the park in time for the last American Idol show of the day and missed it by minutes. They did have a large screen outside the studio playing the show and we watched for a few minutes before heading to the Fantasmic show.

Taking a ride on It's a Small World , another Disney favorite, at our day in The Magic Kingdom.
ellie loved getting all the characters autographs.


The Magic Kingdom was open until midnight for Disney resort guests so we went in the morning when it opened, left in the afternoon to swim and go for dinner, then returned later to take advantage of the extra magic hours. The kids were finally able to get on the teacup ride without waiting in a long line. Felicia rode by herself because she just spun hers around and around and around!

The Ohana dinner at The Polynesian resort was a hit with everyone. It features an all you can eat family style feast where all the food is brought to your table. There was steak, pork, chicken, shrimp, salad, noodles, etc. The meat is cooked on an open fire in the middle of the restaurant. Also, different children's games are featured about every 30 minutes. felicia and Ellie participated in coconut races and the limbo.


The safari, the Lion Kin Show and Everest (the newest roller coaster) seemed to be the favorite attractions at Animal Kingdom. Ellie also had a great time at Dino-Land in this park.
On the day we visited The Animal Kingdom (Nov. 3rd) it was our wedding anniversary of 19 years. We were given pins that said It's our Anniversary to wear.
We attended Cinderella's Royal Dinner at The Grand Floridian one evening. cinderella, Prince Charming, The stepmother and stepsisters were all there. Ellie even got to dance a silly dance with one of the stepsisters.
The stepsisters (this was Drizella) were in true character and the kids thought they were so funny.
"some day my prince will come.." Ellie was almost more excited meeting Prince charming than Cinderella !
The Princess Storybook Breakfast was amazing. We had delicious food and every princess came right to your table for autographs and pictures. We ate at the castle in Norway (in Epcot) and it was so good and filling that we didn't eat lunch !
Posing with Ariel whom they claimed was their favorite princess after meeting them all.
When we went to Epcot, we all enjoyed Soarin' so much we had to go back and ride it again !
Bethany and Felicia and Sam (riding solo in another car) insisted on riding this mini coaster several times--Goofy's Barnstormer was one of their favorite rides.
By the last park day, everyone was easily tired out, feet hurt, legs hurt. Here we took respite on the train ride to get us across the park quicker.

Waving goodbye to the happiest place on earth ! It's back to reality for us !