Had a blast, plan to go back for more!

It seems as if it has been FOREVER since I have posted on my blog, and by the look of my previous post, it has been (wink-wink:)! If you are reading this now, you may want to go grab some food or a drink or go to the bathroom because this will be probably be a LONG post. After all, I need to tell you all about our trip to the House of Mouse!

Day 1: I did not sleep at all the night before up in KC because we had to be up at 4 am to catch our flight out at 6 am. Needless to say, I was exhausted that morning. At one point, I even fell asleep while sitting up in my aisle seat on the plane leaning out toward the window (wow--that's a lot of prepositional phrases!!). Once we arrived in Orlando, we got our rental car, a blue Ford Taurus (not Todd's first choice, but cheap), and went to our hotel. We were pleasantly surprised by this hotel. We were paying a very cheap rate (roughly $40/night), but the hotel itself and room were very nice by our standards. We had a fridge and microwave in our room, plus we didn't have to walk up any stairs with our (my) heavy luggage! That first day we went to Downtown Disney and spent some souvenir money. We also ate dinner at Planet Hollywood before seeing the Cirque de Soliel show. For anyone who has not seen this type of show before, RUN to the nearest show and see it people!! This was our second time, and it felt like I was seeing a brand new show for the first time. There is so much to see and take in that you have to see it more than once. I know we will go see this show again and again!

Day 2: We arrived at Magic Kingdom by 9 am just in time for the opening. We went straight to Adventureland to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. This was Todd's first time (my second--hee hee!) to see this ride since they updated it from the movie. Jack looks so real in this ride! We knew we wanted to go over to Tom Sawyer's Island because this was something we had never done in all of our trips to Disney World. I had read about finding paintbrushes from the DisBoard (Thanks!), and since we were on the first raft over to the island, we found 2 right away. We had no idea what they were used for, but we picked them up and held them proudly! We eventually gave one to a little girl because we knew we didn't need both of them. Once we got back to the "mainland", our entire raft was choses for "A Year of a Million Dreams" Fastpasses!!!! We were so excited! This meant that we had fastpasses (skip to the head of the line for you non-Disney folk) for most of the major rides at Magic Kingdom. We could only use them once, but that was plenty! We also found out that the paintbrushes meant we had unlimited fastpasses to both Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain!! We were in seventh heaven! You would have thought we had just won a million-dollar lottery!

We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon just walking around and taking in all of the Magic Kingdom. We met Brer Bear and Brer Fox in Frontierland. We waited a good 45 minutes to meet Ariel, then waited at least 30 minutes more to meet Snow White (or Snow Tan to us), Cinderella, Aurora, and Belle. We also found Chip, Dale and Goofy.

That night we had reservations at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Resort. We met and sat next to a really cool family from Illinois. We took pictures for each other during our meal. At this character dinner, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, and Goofy all came by to say hello and pose for some pictures. The food was good, but the atmosphere was just that much better!

Once we got back from dinner, we rode more rides and took in more attractions, but the highlight of the night was still yet to come. We watched "Wishes", the fireworks show, from behind the castle for the first time. It was a PERFECT spot to see the fireworks, even though we didn't have the castle in our view. We got to sit for a while and just take in the view. Once the fireworks were over, tons of people left the park, but many stayed to see the second parade of "SpectroMagic". Seeing this parade was the highlight of our day. Actually, what a man said behind us during the parade made our day! A VERY southern Hick man and his kids were standing behind us, and he gave us a play-by-play of each and every float that went by. Imagine in your very best Hick, southern accent: "Hey, look! It's Mary Poppins! Hey, look! It's Mickey Mouse! I got him, I got him gooooooooood!" The best moment came though, when he shouted out, "Hey look! It's the three little pigs!" (This was correct...) "Hey look! It's the three blind mice!" (This was NOT correct...it was the mice from Cinderella!!!!!) Todd and I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed so hard we both had tears streaming down our faces. I don't think I even took pictures for 3-4 floats because I was laughing so hard! This made our day and we still just crack up every time one of shouts out "3 blind mice"!

Day 3: Not as much to report for Epcot this day. We arrived at the opening and fastpassed Soarin'. We rode Nemo and Friends for the first time while we waited for our fastpass time to arrive. We spent the morning in the Future World part of Epcot, riding Living with the Land, Mission Space, Test Track, Ellen's Energy Adventure (good napping ride), and taking in Crush's Turtle Talk, Journey with Figment, and Honey I Shrunk the Audience (a classic favorite of mine). While we were waiting in line for Test Track, the ride broke down again! We have not been to Epcot yet when Test Track has not broken down. We were in the middle of the line, so we decided to stick it out. I sat down and actually fell asleep on the floor!!!

After doing everything we wanted to do in Future World, we walked over to World Showcase. This time we started on the right side over by England and walked around right to left. In the World Showcase, we met Mary Poppins for the first time, but we were also on the lookout for Aladdin. Alas, he was not to be found. He is one character that we want to meet, but he keeps disappearing on us!

We actually left early that night before Illuminations, the night show, even began. My feet were absolutely killing me, and we were both just so tired that we knew we would do a lot better the rest of the vacation if we just went back to the hotel and got some sleep. My feet hurt so badly that I felt like you could have chopped off my feet and I would have felt a lot better. I took off my sandals and wore my Crocs (ugly, but Disney!) the rest of the trip. My feet never hurt again after that!!! I am a believer!

Day 4: This was an easier day as it was spent at Animal Kingdom. While AK is the biggest park square miles-wise, it is probably the smallest walking-wise because the biggest part is spent on a Jeep during the Safari. After we did the Safari, we rode Expedition Everest. This is not a scary rollercoaster by any means, but it just a cool ride! I was actually brave enough to carry my camera with me and get some pictures while on the ride. I think they turned out pretty cool! That afternoon we took in the new "Finding Nemo" Musical. I LOVED LOVED LOVED this show!!! Todd only tolerated it for me (thank you honey!), but now this show is my new favorite! The show is made up of larger-than-life puppets and singers/dancers/puppeteers. Just awesome! We ate lunch at Rainforest Cafe, then went back to the hotel to rest. This was the first time we have ever done this while on vacation. We never go back to the hotel during the day, but we were just tired, and we had literally done everything at AK we wanted to. After our 3-hour nap, we went over to Citywalk at Universal to eat dinner at Bubba Gump's. This dinner was fantastic! We both had four different kinds of shrimp, and they were all delicious!!

Day 5: This was another exhausting, long day, but one of our favorites! This was the day we always save for last because MGM/Disney Studios is Todd's favorite park and my second favorite (MK being the first, of course!). During the morning we rode Aerosmith's Rockin' Roller Coaster two times, with the first time being when we were chosen as "A Year of a Magical Dreams" winners again! This time we each won a Magical Dreams lanyard and pins. Not as cool as the first winning, but still cool to win again! We also rode Tower of Terror (my favorite ride in the park!) a few times. We saw the Beauty and the Beast show. Again, I love it, Todd tolerates it. We also rode the Great Movie Ride. Todd swears we had ridden this ride before, but I didn't remember it at all. I even looked in old scrapbooks and couldn't find pictures of it at all. We ate lunch at the 50's Prime Time Cafe. I was scolded for having my elbows on the table, and Todd was scolded for not taking off his hat. We shared a lunch but then each had our own dessert! I ordered something I had not had in years--S'mores! Later that day, we rode Star Tours twice, took in the Muppets 3D show, the Backlot Tour, and walked through Walt Disney-One Man and a Dream exhibit. This was a really cool walking tour of Walt's life as a small boy to his vision and dream of Disney World. We got to see his second grade desk with his initials carved into it, plus replicas of his drawing table and office. We also did the Animation Tour basically just so we could meet the Incredibles, but they were off taking care of Jack-Jack. We only were able to meet Frozone. We wanted to meet Ratatouille since he was a new character, but he was leaving in 5 minutes and we knew we couldn't get up to the front of the line by then. That night we ate dinner at Hollywood and Vine (not impressed), and saw the night show "Fantasmic". That is exactly how I would describe that show as well. It's so good and one that I hope they never get rid of!

Day 6: Our last day of the Disney vacation and we had one more day of parks left on our tickets. Since they were going to expire within 14 days, we decided to go back to MGM/Disney Studios. We rode Aerosmith and Tower of Terror again, then saw the Indiana Jones stunt show. We had great seats for this, probably the best seats for any show we saw this week. We rode Star Tours again, plus the Great Movie Ride again. Todd wanted to make sure I remembered riding it this time! I also stood outside the big hat to watch the "High School Musical Pep Rally". Yes, I am 29 years old, and I love "High School Musical"!! This live show was cute, but the best part was two other girls about my age who didn't speak much English and I danced and sang to all the songs! Since this was our last day, and we had had incredible luck with the weather, it was bound to rain sometime. Well, it did today. Luckily, it only rained our last 20-30 minutes of actually being in the park, and then we had to head to the airport to catch our flight home. We were both very sad to be leaving, but we know we will be back again someday, hopefully soon!

We spent the rest of the week at Todd's parents' house in KC. They had a houseful! We were there, plus two of Todd's cousins and their families were there. We all had such a wonderful time, though. We never get to spend time with that side of the family, so it was nice to actually get to know them a little bit. In fact, I hadn't seen Rusty and Michelle since our wedding almost 9 years ago!

After being away from home for two weeks, Todd and I were both glad to come home to our doggy, Soze. She missed us so much and was so happy when we got home. We couldn't even go to the bathroom (seperately) without her coming with us to make sure we weren't leaving her again. Thankfully, we won't be leaving again for a long time, so Soze should have nothing to worry about. At least, not until I go back to school in 2 weeks.

TOP 11 THINGS WE LEARNED WHILE ON VACATION: (It was 10, but we had to add 1 more important point!)

11--Behind the castle is the best place to view just the fireworks at Magic Kingdom because it's not nearly as crowded and we could sit down!

10--Credit cards, loose change, and theme parks can mess up our room keys--we had to get new ones made twice!

9--Crocs are my new best friend.

8--Don't buy the pre-paid full tank of gas from the car rental company. We paid for a full tank at $2.87/gal, and we only used less than 1/2 the tank. We could have filled up for $2.79/gal.

7--We found 27 hidden Mickeys out of possible hundreds. We will buy the book next time to help us!

6--We discovered what happens when we find paintbrushes on Tom Sawyer's Island--free stuff!

5--Space Mountain, Star Tours, Aerosmith, Test Track, and Dinosaur are all as bumpy as ever.

4--Princesses are the most difficult to find and time-consuming to meet.

3--Disney takes great pride in the quality of their live shows and caters to kids of all ages (some more than others).

2--We want to stay on-site the next time we go. Yes, it's more expensive, but the details make up for it--Magical Express, put all charges on the room key, Extra Magic Hours, etc.

1--Disney is just as magical as ever, no matter which trip number we are on!

Now I just can't wait to scrapbook all of this!!