Day 5: The Magic Kingdom

Friday, our last day in Disney World, we got up bright and early once again to spend the day at the Magic Kingdom. This was our only day in the Magic Kingdom, but we had spent the evening of the Not-So-Scary Halloween Party there on Tuesday night and got to ride many rides already. Unfortunately, my previously favorite ride, Space Mountain, was closed for renovations. However, we still found a lot of other fun rides. One of our unexpected favorites of the day was Monsters Inc., Comedy Club. We all enjoyed that, I think. Tessa loved the Haunted Mansion. Jesikah really enjoyed "It's a Small World".

Of course, coming into the park, we had to get the mandatory picture of the castle.

My camera lens was a fogged up from the condensation, but I took this picture right off.

Then, I asked a "photographer" (you know the ones that are all around the park to take pictures) to take this picture of us. She appeared to be in a crabby mood, but took it, looked at it, and gave the camera back to us. We didn't look at it right away, but later when we went through our pictures, we were very disappointed in how blurry this shot was. This was probably the worst picture of the week, and it was taken by the "photographer". It was disappointing for me, because I was really looking forward to having a good family picture with the castle. Oh well!

Eric ended up getting a good one later with Alex when they went to get fastpasses.

Another one of them...they obviously found a better photographer. :)

Near the Magic Carpet ride, Peter Pan was waiting to give autographs.

And pictures...

Riding Aladdin's Magic Carpet, all the kids were on the same magic carpet, and Eric and I got to have our romantic carpet ride on the carpet behind...at least until the camel spit on us.

The kids during the ride, taken from above.

Getting autographs from Aladdin and Jasmine afterwards...had to wait awhile for this one.

We finally got to get the picture...they were very friendly and talkative though.

Tessa looking into a mirror in one of the restrooms. Odd to take a picture in a bathroom (I know), but I just thought it was interesting that the princess theme even carried through into some of the restrooms.

I believe this was one of Jarem's favorite things of the day...driving the car in the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway. I was sitting in the passenger seat, and he asked me to push the pedal while he drove. I can't express in words, how ecstatic he was to be DRIVING the car. It was fun to see his excitement.

Ahead of us were, Eric and Jesikah in the red and yellow car, and Tessa and Alex in the blue car. Tessa, Jesikah and Jarem were the drivers.

Here you can see Jesikah and Tessa driving

Jesikah and Eric leaning out for the picture while waiting to exit.

We took a break for a little lunch...Jesikah had the camera and was taking pictures of all of us.

I love this one she took of Eric

Here's part of our lunch...we each took a chunk off this turkey leg. It was quite the leg! It was very tasty too.

Jarem was trying to wander off after lunch

And then he was just too tired to go anymore, it had been a long week.

The Magic Kingdom was really decked all out for Halloween, even Mickey and Minnie had their costumes on. Here are us girls with Minnie...

And, the boys with Mickey.

Here comes the parade down Main Street USA...you can see some of the orange decorations that lined the streets.

The beginning of the "Celebrate Today" parade with Mickey and Minnie kicking it off.

Chip n Dale

And the princesses start to arrive...Snow White

The mice from Cinderella
The evil step-mother and step-sisters...Eric made the comment, "How would to feel if you went to audition for a part and you got selected to be the step-sisters?"...something to think about. :)

Cinderella and Prince Charming

Beauty and the Beast (with the girls) Jesikah was so upset that I took this picture and made her miss the parade that I told her we could run down the street to get the view they missed. On the way back, with our hurrying and holding hands to keep track of each other through the crowds, Tessa hit her head on a trash can and ended up with a really bad headache before the end of the day.

Ariel and Prince Eric

The girls and Jarem with Walt Disney and Minnie Mouse

Jesikah especially liked Minnie at Disney World. She even bought a stuffed Minnie souvenir with her money.

A quick pitstop while Eric helps Tessa get her shoe tied.

We had driven our car to the park this day. In the late afternoon, we decided to head back to the cabin for a nap and dinner and then we would go back until the park closed at 11pm. Well, there was a boat that went directly from Magic Kingdom to Fort Wilderness so we figured it would save us time to go and come back on the boat and then drive our car back that night. So, we had our nap, went to dinner at the Fort Wilderness buffet (which we did have reservations this time--but was still WAY overpriced), and headed on the boat back to Magic Kingdom. This was our beautiful sunset as we waited to get on the boat back to the Magic Kingdom. That night we enjoyed many rides on the Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain, and also Pirates of the Caribbean. This was probably the funnest night of the week, because even Alex had decided that he wanted to go on both Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain!! Jarem got to go on these also, so we went as a family, and that was fun! We even bought the picture to document that Alex enjoyed Splash Mountain (he usually doesn't like any rollercoasters or thrillrides of any kind). We also enjoyed the fireworks show by the castle before heading back.

As we were heading back to the the car, Eric said, "I just realized that I don't have the keys". He had accidentally left them at the cabin when we took the boat back. Well, that really stunk because the park was closing. So we took the boat back to the cabin, and Eric was lucky to get the last bus back to pick up our car after he recovered the keys from the cabin. He was incredibly calm and patient even in a frustrating situation. He made it back within about an hour. We were wiped out after a long week of fun, so we slept in Saturday morning.

Day 4: Disney Hollywood Studios

The big hat is the icon for Disney Hollywood Studios (previously MGM). We had a hard time deciding what to do on this day (Thursday), because we weren't sure if we cared about this park as much as the rest. But, in the end, we decided to give this park a try, and we were pleasantly surprised. Here, we found our favorite rollercoaster, "The Rockin' Rollercoaster". The idea was that you were speeding in a car headed to an Aerosmith concert and it was all dark with the street signs lit by black lights. It went from 0-60 mph in 3 seconds...so pretty fast and you got to listen to Aerosmith. Alex and Jarem didn't go, but Eric and I went twice each time taking one of the girls. It was both girls favorite ride of the day. It was a fun rollercoaster.

We got a slow start to the day because we were tired from the night before so we didn't get the earlier start we had the other days. This park was also more crowded than any park all week, and we were getting afraid that we may have to wait a lot. We did manage to get fastpasses first for Toy Story Mania, and it's a good thing because the fast pass wasn't until 3-4pm. Not only that, but we started out on a couple of attractions that weren't too exciting (Narnia one). Although the kids loved the Narnia movies, the Narnia attraction was a bit lame.

When we saw rocket and the characters from "Little Einsteins", we had to stop for a picture because Jarem has loved that show for a couple of years, and I love what it teaches kids about music.

The kids interacting with Leo and Annie

And, the picture

When we went on the backlot tour, I thought the sewing rooms were interesting. I'm sure there are a lot of costumes to be sewn all the time.

The kids really liked this ride where they play out a pretend scene from a movie, rushing water and all.

Walt Disney's personal airplane on display in the backstage tour.

A Herbie car that they used in the Lights! Motors! Action! Extreme Stunt Show

Just as we were coming out of the "Voyage of the Little Mermaid", we had a streak of luck. It was pouring rain. Everyone was huddled inside everywhere, so we took advantage of the opportunity and put on our ponchos, got out umbrellas and headed out. We got into Star Tours really quickly which otherwise would have been a long line. The rain stopped and the crowds resumed just as we were almost to the front. That worked out well!

Star Tours: R2D2

This ended up being a blurry picture, but I wanted to get a picture of Jarem measuring up. On nearly every ride, he had to get measured and he was just over 40" which meant he got to go on nearly everything, and in this case, "Star Tours". During the vacation, we talked to Jarem a lot about Mickey Mouse Magic, and how Mickey Mouse wouldn't do anything to hurt us, anything that might look or feel scary was just Mickey Mouse magic and Mickey is trying to make it fun. It worked really well for him. He didn't get scared at all.

This was a fun ride for the whole family...Toy Story Mania. You get to wear 3D glasses and go through different areas where you each shoot different targets and get certain points. Jarem especially loved it.

There were lots of fun displays in the waiting area too.

The kids with Woody in the background

Jarem all ready with his glasses and all

Dad and Jarem went together

They were just opposite of us in some areas. Here's them with their blaster guns! :0

I think Alex's favorite attraction of the day was Star Tours. We had a fun day, and with the afternoon rain shower, it cooled down and felt much cooler outside. The one attraction that I wished we would have had time for was the Beauty and the Beast -Live on Stage, but that's ok. We did get in nearly everything. We headed back to our cabin and to get dinner around 4 or 5. We planned to eat at the buffet place on Fort Wilderness, but little did we know, you even have to make reservations for buffets.

The wait was 1 1/2 hours, so we opted to just head over to Downtown Disney and eat there. The kids...especially Alex were begging to go back to Legoland and Goofy's Candy Co. (which was closed the previous night). We thought we'd just eat at the seafood place across from Rainforest Cafe which had been dead the night before. However, it was much busier this night, and we still ended up waiting a good hour before we got a table. We were very hungry, and were determined we would have reservations for the following night. The kids and I visited the Goofy's Candy Co. while Eric waited and I got 2 special order apples with caramel, 2 types of chocolate and nuts for Eric and I. The kids each got a little candy with their money, and Jesikah bought suckers for her friends and bags of caramel/chocolate popcorn for her teachers with her money.

When we finally had dinner, it was good. The clam chowder was delicious! After dinner we went back to Legoland and this time the kids each got a container and picked our individual pieces that they wanted. They also each made their own guy. It was fun, and we kept their containers to give them for Christmas. They were all excited about the pieces they found and could use for different things they are building. Another busy day, another late night, and we once again headed back...