Disney Vacation

It's been a BUSY summer of traveling. When we arrived home from Florida I had so much to tell, but not enough time to blog about all our adventures. As you know I wasn't even home long enough to get caught up on laundry and household chores much less blog!

It has taken me a while to sort through pictures and decide how best to blog about our vacation adventures in Florida. After uploading 35+ pictures for one post about Disney I decided a slideshow might be easier, and give you a greater opportunity to share in our memories. I only took 174 photos between our trip to Naples and the trip to Disney in Orlando! Then there was the Disney PhotoPass CD with 74 photos. No wonder this post has been in the making for several weeks!

Anyway, we had an absolute blast at Disney World! After we checked into the Disney Polynesian Resort we took the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom. We strolled down Main Street and headed straight for Cinderella's Castle. Katherine was beaming and Sebastian was too! We continued through the castle and made the decision that the first ride must be 'it's a small world'. We rode in Winni-the-Pooh's honey pot through the Hundred Acre Wood storybook. We helped Buzz defeat the Emperor Zurg on Buzz Lightyear Space Spin Ranger, and visited Jack Sparrow and the Pirates of the Caribbean. We enjoyed some overpriced water and ice cream snacks! We walked through several souvenir shops to visit the air conditioning & attempt to cool off. We walked through Mickey & Minnie's houses and met both of them; however, I hadn't purchased the kids autograph books yet, so we didn't get their autographs at that time.

We stayed for the Electrical Parade that night, and that was where some of our best memories where made! We stood along the extremely crowded main street. Sebastian sat on Wes's shoulders and I was able to get Katherine right up front as the parade started where she could see. Both kids had birthday buttons on as we were celebrating Sebastian's half birthday that day and Katherine's (yes, a little early) on this trip. As Snow White walked by during the parade she wished Katherine happy birthday. Katherine had the biggest smile ever at that moment, and when Tinkerbell rode by Sebastian yelled " Tinkerbell...Tinkerbell... HEY TINK, IS THAT YOU?!?" It was priceless!

Our second day was a little more relaxed. Wes took off to play golf at one of the resort golf courses while the kids and I took the monorail back over to the Magic Kingdom. First stop was to the souvenir shop to buy autograph books! It wasn't long after we left the souvenir shop that we saw Ariel and Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid, so it was a VERY good thing we had our autograph books in hand! Katherine's favorite Disney Princess is Ariel, so she was floating on a cloud at that moment. Sebastian had a special moment with Ariel as she kissed him! Yes, it was another one of those precious & priceless memories! Oh, I almost forgot...per Sebastian.. I'm not supposed to tell that Ariel kissed him...oops! :-)

The kids and I rode on Aladdin's magic carpet and walked through the Swiss Family Robinson's Tree House before we decided it was hot and we'd rather go back to our room and spend a little time swimming in the really cool pool. We swam and played in the water until Wes got back from playing golf, at which time he joined us for a little pool fun.

Later that evening we headed over to Epcot where we rode The Seas with Nemo & Friends & Soarin' before getting autographs from Mickey, Minnie, Daffy Duck, Pluto, & Goofy. By then it was almost mid-night and we were tired. It was time to go to bed!

Day three was spent at Hollywood studio's where we met many more of Katherine & Sebastian's favorite characters. We saw Muppet Vision 3-D & Voyage of The Little Mermaid, rode Toy Story Mania & The Great Movie Ride, as well as enjoyed playing games & eating at Pizza Planet. After leaving Hollywood Studios we headed back to our room to freshen up for a very special dinner. Wes had made us a reservation at the Grand Floridian where we dined at Cinderella's Happily Ever After Dinner at 1900 Park Fare and were greeted by Cinderella, Prince Charming, and Cinderella's step mother & sisters. We finished off the night by watching the fireworks from the beach and swimming in the pool.

As we wrapped up our last day at Disney we went back to the Magic Kingdom and finished with a few rides and shows we missed before. We rode Splash Mountain, Peter Pan's flight, Buzz Lightyear's Space Spin Ranger (again), and saw Mickey's Philharmagic.

We had a wonderful time at Disney World and are looking forward to going back in the future. And now let us share our memories in a 6 minute slide show: