Magic Kingdom Take 2

Thanks to my SIL Brandi, we had the 411 that staying
onsite was worth the cost, especially with little ones in tow.
I can't say enough how much more relaxed that made the trip
for us. It was so nice at the end of a LONG day to just
stroll back to the hotel, take the elevator up, and deposit
our sleepy babies into their beds. We bought 3 day park
hoppers (thank you Brian's mom for using your Cali discount
for us!!!) and checked into our hotel Wed. afternoon. We had
originally planned to have Wed. be the first day of the hopper,
but we got a later start than expected, so we opted to stay out
of the park until Thurs. It worked out just fine because Jonathan
took the girls to the Neverland pool, while Max napped and I
planned the next days schedule. Again, Brandi's wealth of
information about all things Disney was so helpful in plotting out
each day's events/attractions. Max and I joined the rest of the
family at the pool after his nap, and later that evening we took
Brandi's advice and strolled downtown Disney to search for the
girls' souvenirs. Kennedy was quick to identify the Belle doll as
her souvenir and the two of them were inseparable for the
duration of our trip. Macy wanted so badly to find a "Silvermist"
doll from the TinkerBell movie. Sadly, there were none to be
found. Later the next day she fell in love with the Buzz Light year
with retractable wings, and he became her constant companion.



Once inside the park, we didn't stop for many photo-ops,
but we couldn't pass up a picture in front of Sleeping
Beauty's castle. Unfortunately when we were there
there weren't any English or Portuguese speakers around,
so we couldn't ask someone to take the pic with all of us
in it. Darn...we'll get that next time. And there WILL be a
NEXT time! We spent all of day one at Disneyland.
Unfortunately we made the unsavory mistake of having one
of Macy's first rides be Space Mountain. I didn't even
remember what that ride was all about. That set the
tone for the remainder of our trip. From that point on
Macy frantically asked at each stop if the ride was a) dark,
b) fast, and c) scary. I did my best to investigate the answers
to these questions for each ride (it has been almost 20 years
since I last visited the MK) but sometimes I was misinformed.
For example, even the Peter Pan ride is DARK and the lovely
stars in the night sky DO resemble the little lights on Space Mtn.,
especially if you are a traumatized 3 1/2 year old. In fact,
almost every ride that involved being indoors was dark, except
for It's a Small World. Needless to say, poor Macy didn't enjoy
the trip as she could have had we not made that fatal mistake.
Thankfully I don't think she'll be warped for life. She IS
still excited to return and assures us she'll be ready to try
some of the bigger, FASTER rides next time. Thanks to Fast Pass
and Rider Exchange, we were able to enjoy all of Tomorrowland,
New Orleans Square, and most of Frontierland during Day 1.




On Day 2, we enjoyed breafast with Ariel and all of her
princess friends at California Adventure. We enjoyed
sleeping in a bit, and the laidback atmosphere and smaller
crowds were a nice break from the nonstop excitement
of Disneyland. I got a lot smarter on Day 2, and made
better use of the fast pass system by only using two tickets
at each kiosk (we had four in total). This way I could walk
from one ride to the other and immediately fast pass again
using the two not used previously. If you know how the system
works, you have to wait a period of time between each fast pass
you get. By interspersing the two sets of tickets, I got fast passes
at Soarin', Grizzly Rapids, and Screamin' in a period of a little over
an hour. I LOVED the screamin' coaster and since we had two
fast passes for it and a Rider Exchange, I got to ride it twice
without the fuss of long lines! Soarin' was also REALLY COOL,
and one of the all time favorites since it also made Macy's
SHORT fun list (: I should mention here that Max and I
got the fast passes while Jonathan and the girls waited in line
at the Toy Story ride, which doesn't have the fast pass feature.
They had barely finished getting off their ride by the time
I had been to three attractions for fast passes. And just as
I strolled up, I got to skip the line and ride the Toy Story ride
with K since Jonathan got a Rider Exchange ticket for me.
I must sing the praises of these two programs. They are so
family friendly. Had it not been for FP and Rider Exchange,
we wouldn't have enjoyed the Disney experience nearly as
much, since one of us had to sit out each ride to be with Max.




On the last day, we availed ourselves of the Magic
Morning early entry, and went straight to Fantasyland
(which we had intentionally saved for last). We rode
pretty much all the minor attractions there in the space of
about 45 min. It was so great to hop on ride after ride
with no lines!! Gotta love Magic Morning, another
CONVINCING reason to justify the $$$ spent to stay
at the Disneyland hotel. After riding the rides of Fantasyland,
we went to the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique so each girl
could pick out a princess outfit. I should say here that
we prepped the girls before the trip that they would each
get ONE souvenir item of their choosing, and ONE dress up.
Since I have never purchased ANY dress ups prior to this (we do
have an assortment of halloween costumes and castoffs from
friends that we dress up in), I felt it OKAY to spend the money
for a TRULY magical final day at Disney. Kennedy chose
Jasmine and Macy chose the generic princess bride dress, which
we dubbed the "Gisele" dress because it looked like princess
Gisele from Enchanted. This was definitely a highlight of the
trip and an appropriate crescendo to our magical family vacation.
The girls were even stopped by a group of Japanese tourists for a
snapshot (: It was really rather funny, since the same thing
happened in Hawaii with Kennedy when she was 8 months old.
I guess there's just something novel about my darling girls that
tourists find irresistible??!

After Fantasyland, our "princesses" accompanied us back to
California Adventure to visit Bug Land, the only part of the park
we didn't see during Day 2. We enjoyed a leisurely afternoon
there, and spent a lot of time in the water features during the
hottest part of the day. Once again, we were glad to be on site,
since I didn't realize they had water features and hadn't packed
for them. Jonathan did a mad dash to the parking lot, and
retrieved (with some coaching from me) the swimsuits, towels,
and sandals, so the girls could get wet without ruining there
brand new princess duds. When we'd had enough of BugLand,
we strolled back over to Disney to Frontierland for the evening.
We enjoyed the Mark Twain riverboat, and a few rides we hadn't
had time for on Day 1. I must insert here that you MUST stop for
a Dole Whip in Frontierland and here's a very helpful pointer:
the line at the Dole Whip stand is almost as bad as the line for
Splash Mtn, UNLESS you agree to spend 20 min. in an air
conditioned tiki room for a cute little ditty by some friendly
parrots... in that case, you can enter the reserved waiting area
for Tiki Room guests ONLY and cut right to the front of line for a
Whip on th other side of the stand. I highly recommend coming
here during the hottest part of the day. Not only will you get a
taste of Hawaiian heaven, but you can enjoy the cooler that is
the Tiki Room...an oasis in the hotter than hot SoCal sun.

Trust me.

You. will. thank. me.

I have had a Dole Whip before at the Dole plantation on Oahu.
To my knowledge, this is the only place you can get them in the
lower 48.
So go.
After our whip, I lined up 1 1/2 hrs. BEFORE showtime for
the Fantasmic show over Tom Sawyer's Island. It is WORTH
IT. We saw the show the 1st night, but decided to come back for
better viewing. I LOVED this show...and I LOVE DISNEY. After
Fantasmic, we headed towards Main Street, with a clever little
detour near Aurora's castle for our 3rd viewing of "Magical" the
daily fireworks show. It was the perfect way to finish a lovely
Disney stay. We had checked out of our hotel earlier in the day,
so we packed the kids in the car and drove 2 hours,

South,

to San Diego.

Stay tuned...





I was a little leary about taking Max on a nonstop
thriller vacation like this, but really I had no choice.
He did EXCEPTIONALLY well, taking good naps
in the stroller and the bjorn. Oh, and I nursed him
on the go: standing in line at Nemo's adventure,
eating lunch, outside the bathrooms, etc. How
did I accomplish this discreetly you ask? Because
my fantastic MIL bought me one of these.

Max really was a dream, and I'd say that this
first REAL family vacation with an infant so
exceeded my expectations that I'd do it again
in a heartbeat. The top ten things that made it
possible:

1) uppababy stroller (to be highlighted in later post)
2) rumbleseat for said uppababy
3) hooter hider (did I mention it doubles as a sun
shield while baby is in bjorn?!)
4) pacifier
5)pacifier clippy
6)bjorn or other carrier
7)breastfeeding (no bottles, formula, prepping,
planning, etc.)
8)rider exchange (THANK YOU DISNEY!)
9)Fast Pass
10) huge diaper bag to accomodate all the necessities!