When we found out we were going to Fort Myers Beach we couldn't pass up the opportunity to drive the three hours to Orlando to take Nora and Myles to the Magic Kingdom. They're at the perfect age for it and we could just stay a day and a half.
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| Walt Disney World! |
Walt Disney World.
The most magical place on Earth.
Except for us it didn't start out so magical. After a three hour car ride Nora started getting a little green around the gills. Never plagued by car sickness before I just advised her to put her coloring and books, etc away for a while. She said she was feeling fine and wasn't going to get sick until we were literally pulling into our parking spot at the hotel. Suddenly, I hear a panicked, "MOM!" and with no more than .67 seconds after... you know. I'll spare you the details but yeah. That's how our trip to Disney began.
Within 30 minutes she was back to her normal self running around the hotel grounds looking for lizards while Dan and I attempted to clean out the car.
After about an hour and a half we finally got on the bus to visit Downtown Disney (which was the only plan for the afternoon anyway -- just slightly delayed. But that's ok because it was only car sickness and not the flu!)
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| Mr. Cool in the Harley-Davidson store. |
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| Full bellies and all smiles listening to a live band. |
We took the water taxi back to our hotel and finally tucked the kids into their bed (not just any bed... one with LED fireworks in the headboard when you pushed a button) at 10:30.
Our day at Magic Kingdom started out gloomy but our attitudes were anything but. We were armed with ponchos and excitement. By early-afternoon the clouds parted and brought sunny skies as you'll see.
We got there just after the doors opened.
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| Cinderella's Castle |
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| I quickly tracked down '1st Visit' buttons for the kids. |
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| Waiting in line for It's a Small World. |
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| Pirates of the Caribbean Ever since this ride he's said he wants a pirate party for his 4th birthday. |
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| Our kids love a roller coaster. Big Thunder Mountain was one of their top three rides of the day. |
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| Splash Mountain was another favorite. No fear. They loved it and wanted to go again. |
We knew in advance that the line to meet Frozen's Anna and Elsa would likely be far too long and prepped our kids that they wouldn't be able to meet them. They understood completely and agreed that they'd rather wait in line to go on a ride instead. (phew!) I did want them to have a chance to meet a couple of princesses though so I scheduled one of our FastPass+ items to be a meet and greet with Cinderella and Rapunzel (which worked out great because they're some of our faves).
I'm so glad we did because this story is one of my top favorite memories of our Disney trip.
So Rapunzel squats down like this, takes Myles' hand and says, "Tell me. What do you dream about?"
He gets a silly grin and in his sweetest little voice says, "I dream of you!"
Haha! I love it!
Another one of my favorite memories was watching the afternoon parade with this guy.
A nice couple let Nora and Myles sneak through to get a spot right at the curb. Myles' arm never stopped waving. With every new princess he waved and yelled their names. "Hi Anna! Hi Elsa! Hi Ariel!" I loved seeing the excitement through his eyes. There was nothing sweeter.
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| The tea cups was a mom-only ride. Too much spinning for Dan. |
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| Waiting for Tomorrowland Speedway |
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| Look who's at the wheel! |
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| Way too excited to be driving. |
We debated staying (or even coming back later that night after a break) for the nighttime parade and fireworks show but when we found out that the parade wasn't until 9pm (post day-light savings) with fireworks at 10 we decided against it...
...which was good. On our walk to catch the bus back to the hotel at 6:30 this boy passed out. He barely woke up to get his pajamas on. He slept until the next morning. I would say that's a successful day.
