We just had to make a trip to Disney this year with the girls being so into princesses. Ava has a slight obsession with Minnie Mouse plus she knows the names of all of the princesses. They are very much into the movies and dressing like princesses as well. Kids are free until they are three so it was a perfect opportunity to take the family and not have to pay for everyone. We took Bella on her second birthday and thought it would be nice for Ava to have the same opportunity plus give Bella a chance to experience "the magic" and possibly remember it this time! Her cousins got to go earlier this year and she has been asking about it ever since. Randy and I had been trying to plan the trip and finally sat down one day to nail down dates and realized we had a very limited time frame! With all that is going on this summer including Bella's kindergarten assessments, Porter's check-ups (which we have to schedule months in advance!), my finishing my internship, and family and friends visiting, it was not easy to find time! We only planned to spend one day in Disney for financial reasons but wanted to make the trip worth while so, like last time, we made arrangements to go to Bonita Springs as well. We have been there a couple of times where Randy's aunt and uncle have graciously allowed us to stay at their condo and it has always been a lot of fun. More on that portion of the trip in another post.
So we arrived in Disney Tuesday evening around 5 pm. The kids were awake the whole trip from Bonita Springs to Disney and fell asleep just as we got there! Randy checked us in the hotel and we headed to Downtown Disney. The girls had no idea what to expect so they were pretty impressed with just the stores and decorations. Randy had surprised me and booked a nice hotel room. He got an amazing deal because they just opened and don't have everything finished yet. It was called the B Resort and we had a king sized bed and bunk beds! The rates will double and triple as they complete it so we lucked out with timing. Normally we would have gotten a super cheap place that isn't so nice knowing we don't spend a lot of time there. (The picture of Porter is of him showing us how happy he was to be at our destination and out of his own carseat- he was sitting in Bella's seat while I got some things together. FYI- You can click on any of the pictures to see bigger versions!)
I did a ton of laundry in a short amount of time to prepare for the trip and packed in about a day. I decided to make the whole trip Disney-themed so I only packed Disney pajamas and Disney movies, Disney toys and books plus extra Disney surprises from the dollar store to give them when we arrived. It was nice to have that stuff on hand so they would hopefully not be so occupied by all of the things they didn't have! We also had some money they had saved from an Easter gift to take with us so that was there spending money while there.
We got up Wednesday morning and headed to breakfast in the hotel. I had them dressed in Disney clothes of course, including a Mickey onesie someone gave us for Porter. We caught a bus from our hotel and then rode the ferry to Magic Kingdom- we rode the ferry when we took Bella the first time and we also thought it would be fun for Ava because she hasn't ever been on a boat. We planned to take the monorail on the way home but when we left that night, it wasn't working.
We started with Enchanted Tales with Belle which was great for both girls. They walked you through Belle's father's cottage and then used the magic mirror to tell the story of how Belle fell in love with the Beast. All the kids had a chance to play a part too. Bella was "Chip", the small tea cup. After that we headed to Ariel's Grotto to meet her and rode the Little Mermaid ride. We also met Cinderella and Rapunzel, Tinkerbell, Minnie, Daisy, Donald and Goofy while we were at the park that day. Cinderella paid extra attention to Porter saying he was like her little mice and had him smiling like crazy! We rode the Pooh ride, Aladdin's magic carpet, Peter Pan, It's a Small World, Dumbo, Buzz Light-year, and the Carousel. Randy took Bella to do the Barnstomper, a new coaster, and to the Haunted Mansion, The Jungle Cruise and the new Seven Dwarf's Mine Train while the littles slept in the stroller. They also visited the Robinson Family Treehouse. Bella and I rode Pirates of the Caribbean together and the Little Mermaid ride again. We also saw the 3D Mickey show and visited the Monster's Laugh Floor. Bella loved meeting the princesses and getting their autographs which she called "oldagraphs." We also spent a good amount of time looking for an Elsa doll for her and she ended up getting an Aurora music/jewelry box as well. It is her most prized possession these days! Ava picked out an Anna doll. Of course there were the lovely fireworks and the electric parade, two of my favorites, plus a new presentation they do on Cinderella's castle which we loved. Ava went to sleep about 8 in the stroller and never woke up but we ran around doing things until the park closed at 12. We covered a lot of ground and had a blast! Randy worked out all of the fastpasses so we didn't have to wait in lines and that was a huge help.
We got to bed about 2am that night after having showers and all and headed home after breakfast the next day. It was so much fun and we are all ready to do it again!
