Day 7- Our Last Day at Magic Kingdom

When we found out that we were going to Disney World I knew that there were 2 places I wanted to eat, the Coral Reef Cafe and Cinderellas Royal Table inside Cinderella Castle. I was able to secure reservations for the Coral Reef Cafe but not the Castle. The dining reservation cast member told me that my best bet at getting in was to call everyday we were there and see if there had been any cancellations. So we did. We called everyday and nothing. Finally on our last night there we got lucky. They'd had a cancellation for 8:30 the next morning! Yes! There was a problem however. When you make reservations at the Castle it is prepay only and we had left our Visa's in our hotel room because when you are in the park you only need your "key to the world" which pays for everything. Now normally this wouldn't be a problem because we have our Visa numbers memorized but just before we left for the trip we were notified by our bank that our information had been stolen and they issued us a new account with new cards and new numbers (that we still hadn't memorized). There was also one other small problem. We weren't at our hotel. We were standing in line for the shuttle back to the hotel though so we asked the cast member we were on the phone with if she could hang on while we took the 10 minute shuttle ride back. We wanted these reservations bad! She agreed and hung on the line. For some reason however our bus driver went a different way back to the hotel and instead of being the first stop we were the very last stop! Ugggg! After 35 minutes we were finally back at our hotel and were able to secure the reservation. Hooray! What a sweet lady for waiting on the line for that long for us.

We were up bright and early (6 am which was 4 am UT time) to make sure we were on time to our breakfast reservation. We had to get up that early to get ready but it was also our last day at Disney World so we had to get packed up, checked-out of the hotel and checked-in to the airline. It was hectic but worth it to be able to eat in the castle!

When you walk in the castle you are greeted by non other than Cinderella herself.

Sitting at our royal table.

The ceiling of the castle. Can you see the Hidden Mickeys? :)

As part of the breakfast package you get to meet the Princesses, like I said before the princesses are way more accessible than at Disneyland.

The kids had to sit on the outside of the table so the princesses could get to them more easily. Unfortunately it made taking good pictures more difficult because the window was behind them.

In between the princesses they take a break to give the girls a wand and the boys a sword and a wishing star. When they are all passed out they do a little rhyme and make the kids close their eyes and make a wish. As you can see Harris was really into the wishing part. ;)

So sweet!

This Ariel was the prettiest and sassiest ;) that we have met.

For some reason they only have peasant Belle at Disney World.

After a fabulous breakfast of deep fried cream cheese danish :) we set out to find more characters. Our first stop was to see Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder from Tangled. At this point it was only about 9:15 and the characters weren't scheduled to come out until 10. So I stood in line while Chet and the kids went in search of hot chocolate. You see, over night a cold front moved into Orlando and it was freezing! While I was standing in line freezing my butt off I checked Weather Channel and it said that the temperature was 24 degrees! So cold. So cold.

Finally we were let into the area where the characters were going to be. They had the parents line up against the wall and the kids were all around a big table set up with crayons and coloring paper. When the kids finished coloring, Rapunzel and Flynn finally came out. Liv was dying because they came out and wanted to do a dance with all the kids. She was so embarrassed! Fortunately, it didn't last very long. :)



Poor Liv! I just love watching her face she looks like she is going to die of embarrassment!

Rapunzel and Flynn

This is right next to where you stand in line to see Flynn and Rapunzel and the kids wanted to pose for the camera. You don't say no when the kids want to pose. ;)

After meeting and dancing with Flynn and Rapunzel we wanted to go find Davy Crockett Donald in Frontierland and do Big Thunder and Splash Mountain.

This was a cool character find. For some reason Donald is very hard to see. He is hardly ever out so to see him and have him be in a new costume was awesome!

After riding Jungle Cruise (which got a +3) we wandered through Frontierland and came upon our family treehouse! ;)

It was almost time to head out but there was one more character that we wanted to see. So we headed back to Main Street to meet Daisy.

Surprisingly enough this is the first time we have ever seen Daisy. You think she would be out more with the other main characters. Maybe she is just elusive like Donald.

After our final character meeting at Disney World it was time to say goodbye. We had an amazing time and look forward to our next visit!

Goodbye Disney World we will see you in 2012!

P.S. Are you ready? ;)

This was at the exit where Santa had been.

Day 6 - Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom

So, Day 6 was kind of a make-up day.  We didn't have a lot of plans so we decided that we wanted to try to get some daytime activity over at Animal Kingdom (there were a couple rides we missed and we wanted to see some more animals), followed by another nightly excursion to Magic Kingdom (which, as already described, was Jaime's favorite because of it's Disneyland-like feel).
When we first got into the park we met DiVine.  She was so.....weird.

Anyway...there are 2 cool rides at Animal Kingdom and we wanted to make sure we did them both this day.  First was the Dinosaur ride.  Dinosaur was very cool.  They premise is kind of Jurassic Parkish except you go back in time right before the meteor shower that destroyed all the dinosaurs.  The effects are cool and the animatronics on the dinosaurs once you go back in time are top notch.  The only problem with this is that Harris was so scared!  The ride does a very good job of making you feel like you are being chased by a dinosaur and near the end he jumps out to eat you.  This is when they snap the pic;

My job was to protect Harris (it was Little Buddy's job as well)...Jaime says she wasn't clutching her heart but was just about to check her phone (yes, she keeps it in her shirt).  Anyway, it was a great ride.

We also decided to try the Safari ride again (and we hoped that it wouldn't take a 90 minute wait this time!).  The wait was much shorter and we got some good pics;

Not a lot of narration really needed here...these are pictures of animals we saw whilst on the Safari ride.

We also made time to do cool ride #2, Expedition Everest.  No pics this time but it could be my favorite Disney ride...

We walked around, saw some animals, got some food and realized that we were FREEZING COLD!  So we decided to head back to the resort, put on everything we brought and head over to Magic Kingdom.

 On the way out we saw this on a t-shirt and bought it for Harris (as well as on a beach towel).


Not really much to report on for Magic Kingdom this night, it was pretty much more of the same.  We did Pooh Bear again and a couple other rides but our evening was really dominated by the desire to stay warm which was surprisingly hard to do.

 The kids playing in the interactive line for Winnie the Pooh.

 Cute pic on the ride...can you tell that Harris is cold?

 Of course we had to do Philharmagic again...Harris really liked it (but you can't tell from this photo)


So, funny story to close out here.  I started to notice a funny trend on the trip.  It seemed that in some pictures, Liv had seemed a bit off during my first effort to snap the photo and I would have to tell her, "No", and then retake.  The below is a good example from this night of what we began to call "two take" Liv...

 Real picture, she wasn't trying to make this face!

The retake version.

Another great day!

Day 4 - Christmas Eve at Magic Kingdom

Knowing that Magic Kingdom is Jaime's favorite of the parks, (I knew this would be the case beforehand as Magic Kingdom is the most like Disneyland...) we decided to spend Christmas Eve there.  This was our first day to spend daylight hours in Magic Kingdom and, among other things, we wanted to see some characters that we either hadn't seen before or hadn't seen in a while. (Finding characters and getting a pic/autograph has always been a hobby of ours.)

When it comes to finding new characters to have pictures with, we count characters with new outfits as new.  For example, Pirate Goofy:

We own a Dub Video Dub that includes Disneyland songs including the Country Bears.  Disneyland has long since gotten rid of their Country Bear show but it still exists at Disney World.

This was the absolute craziest thing I have ever seen at a Disney Park. Songs that included lyrics like; "blood on the saddle, blood all around and a great big puddle of blood on the ground", "all the guys that turn me on turn me down" etc. was just plain weird...but fun.  Harris loved it and made us go see it again later on in the trip.

After this we saw the Disney World version of the Tiki Room. Here it is a little different in that Iago and Zazu (from Aladdin and Lion King) had taken over and revamped the show.  It was fun to see it a little more updated.

Zazu

Iago

At this point we headed over to Toon Town to check it out. They had a cool Character Spot that had a place for the Disney Princesses. Now, Jaime loves the Disney Princesses but Olivia feels that she is now way too mature for such things :).  As such, we haven't stood in line to see them for years so we decided to overrule Liv and give it a go.

So, I was in charge of photography and Jaime informed me that I had taken an inordinate amount of pictures of Belle.  For the record, I have no idea what she is talking about...

The kids in front of Mickey's house.

Keeping with the theme of meeting with Characters, we decided to do a Character Dinner with Winnie the Pooh and friends.

I liked seeing the characters this way (with them just walking around to each table), especially Tigger.  Tigger is one of the most obnoxious characters to get a picture with when he is walking around Disneyland. He usually ends up just walking away.

We spent the rest of Christmas Eve doing rides and having a good time.  Here is some picture evidence:

We almost never do the Teacups ride (both Jaime and I get a bit motion sick) but we made an exception here.  The kids here are wrestling me for control of the spinning mechanism ( I won, btw)

We saw parts of the Electrical Parade just about every time we were at Magic Kingdom.  Christmas Eve was no exception.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is one of our very favorite rides at either park.  We made sure to do it as much as possible.

Jaime's favorite ride is Splash Mountain, so we made sure to do it twice...

I thought this was funny.  The park was so dead late on Christmas Eve that even though there was no one on the ride they kept taking pictures of when the logs went over the big drop...

We liked not having to wait though, we especially liked that we didn't have to exit our log when we went on the ride for the 2nd time!

The Laughing Place outside the ride

After a very full day we headed back to our hotel room.  On the way out I snapped this cool pic of the castle:

I also thought this was a cool photo opp.

At this point  I should relay the story of the Christmas Tree. 

For months and months, Jaime has been bugging me to get this ridiculous Christmas Tree from the Disney Florist to have in our room.  It was a cool 4 foot flocked tree with a  monogrammed tree skirt.  While the tree was cool I would describe it as...cost prohibitive.  So, much to Jaime's dismay, I denied her request.  I definitely understood Jaime's concern about spending Christmas morning without a tree and decided to honor her request but without her knowledge. 

So, in the middle of the day on Christmas Eve we found an 18" fiber optic tree for sale at one of the little shops and Jaime asked me if we could buy it so we could "at least have something"...my wife is so dramatic!  Anyway, I had already purchased the tree from Disney Florist and arranged to have it delivered and set up while we were at the park on Christmas Eve and I really didn't want to spoil the surprise (for her or the kids) so I agreed to the purchase of the fiber optic tree and send her and the kids out of the shop so I could "arrange to have it sent directly to our room".  

OK, back to the blog journal.  Once we got back to the resort and headed to our room Jaime could see that our blinds were open and what looked to be Christmas lights were shining through the window.  As I opened the door for Jaime to walk in she caught site of the tree and started to cry.  That moment made it all worth it.  Here is a picture of said tree;

So, all in all Christmas Eve was a smashing success.