We're all settled at home and back into our regular schedule. For the first week, I found myself having the same feeling back at work as I did after we got the trailer in the summer - the feeling that I'd rather be somewhere else but knowing that in order to be somewhere else, work is where I need to be. I think I just need to focus on our next big thing - the arrival of baby #3 in less than 3 months time! I'll be posting all the details about our Disney Trip over a few posts. For today - an overview.
In short, we had SO.MUCH.FUN. The boys were surprisingly well behaved for our day and a half of driving each way and few days at Disney World. I feel like if we can do a 20 hour drive through 7 states (NY, PA, WV, VA, NC, SC, GA) with a 2.5 and 5 year old and me being 25 weeks pregnant in a tiny car and actually have a good time, we can do anything. It also made me realize how much closer other small getaways are (Ottawa, Niagara Falls, Montreal, Quebec City, etc.) and that when the inkling to go somewhere strikes, we should just DO IT.
Day 1: Christmas morning we woke the boys up at 4:45am to open presents from Santa. We had already done all of our family Christmas festivities and DH and I only bought them a few small gifts to keep them occupied on the drive so all they had to open were stockings and 3 presents each from santa. This only took 10-15 minutes. We had them put all the stuff they wanted to bring from santa in a cloth bag while DH packed the car up and I whipped up some eggs, toast, and coffee. We quickly scarfed down the food, did a quick clean up of the kitchen, put the coffee in travel mugs and were on the road by 5:30am. I'll save all the road tripping details for another post.
Day 2: Arrived in sunny Florida (22 Degrees!) around 1pm. After grabbing a few groceries for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks, and a few summer items of clothing for me since I've never been pregnant in warm weather, from Walmart, we checked into the Pop Century Resort at 3pm. The Resort and the room were perfect. It was very clean and we didn't feel at all cramped. I thought we'd spend a lot more time at the resort than we did but really it was just a place to rest our head. After a quick change into shorts (!) we hopped on Disney Transit to Downtown Disney for our dinner reservations at the T-Rex. Downtown Disney was beautifully decorated for Christmas. After dinner we hit up the huge Lego store where the boys built some creations while I stood in line to buy DH a souvenir Lego coffee mug with his name on it. Then it was back to the Resort and off to bed.
Day 3: Woke up bright and early and headed off to Magic Kingdom. Got all our "Fast Pass" rides in and a couple others with short lines before heading back to the Resort around 12:30pm for lunch in our room and naps. DH and I sat on one bed in the dark with our iPhones while the boys snoozed in the other bed. B woke up after an hour so DH took him down to the pool (just outside our room) and N slept another hour and a half. Once N woke up, we headed back to Magic Kingdom for just before 5pm. We rode the steam train around the entire park. It was evident that N was cranky and tired as he didn't want to wait in lines anymore so we went light. After the train ride, we grabbed some hot dogs and fries for dinner from Casey's Corner followed by some Mickey ice cream bars and took a walk around the park to enjoy the castle and Main Street all lit up. I'd hoped to stay for the electrical parade (9pm) and fireworks (10pm) but followed the boys lead and headed back to the bus around 7:30pm. We watched some Disney Jr. in the room before packing it in for the night.
Day 4: Woke up bright and early and headed to Animal Kingdom. It was rainy but didn't last long after we got to the park. We got all our Fast Pass rides done in the morning and a few other attractions that didn't have long line-ups. We also did a character meet and greet photo opportunity with Mickey and Minnie which was super fun. The boys really enjoyed this. By 12:30pm, N had a meltdown at one of the rides when a family took our spot and we had to wait until the next turn - he thought we weren't going to ride. His meltdown scored him and his brother free Mickey ice cream bars since the ride operator felt bad for him. We took that as a que and headed back to the Resort for lunch and naps. Both boys slept almost 3 hours and then we hopped back on the bus to Animal Kingdom for our 5pm dinner reservations at the Rainforest Cafe. After dinner we hit up the rides we didn't make earlier in the day - lines were much shorter - and walked around for a bit before purchasing a couple of our photos from the meet and greet earlier in the day and heading back to the Resort at 8:30pm. We managed to get everything in at Animal Kingdom that we'd wanted in the one day. Bonus - we got to see some fireworks from our room just before the boys went to sleep.
Day 5: Woke up earlier than the two days before to pack our stuff up and managed to actually make it for early park hours for resort guests at the Park. We decided to go back to Magic Kingdom since there were still a number of rides we didn't get on the first day. It was off and on rainy that day so the Park wasn't too busy. We used our Fast Passes for the most popular rides and then the boys managed to get on a number of other rides with only a 5-30 minute wait. At this point, I was really tired from walking around the previous two days so took it easy and found a place to sit while the boys took turns going on rides with DH where the 3 of them couldn't all go together. We left the Park around 1pm having felt that we accomplished more on the last half-day at Magic Kingdom than we did the entire first day. We grabbed some McDonalds an hour out of Orlando and then the boys slept for a good few hours of our drive back to North Carolina. We made it to our destination in NC by 8pm and had a very late dinner at Appleby's before checking into our hotel for the night.
Day 6: We hit the road bright and early and saw the sun rise as we were driving through the Appalachians. The boys napped quite a bit during the drive this day too. Early afternoon we stopped for gas and found a Tim Horton's in PA, about an hour out from the border. The boys were elated for donuts and DH for a "real coffee" after his McDonald's coffee that morning. We arrived home at 6:30pm. The boys ordered a pizza for dinner and I went out to Milestones with some good friends from high school for our annual dinner catchup.
I was worried about all the driving for such a short trip but both DH and I felt afterward that 3 days at Disney was just right for the boys at 2.5 and 5 years old. Longer would probably be okay if you broke it up with some non-park days but they were pretty tired by the third day.
2 comments:
sounds like a great trip! and those boys did awesome! If we ever go down there in the coming years, I think we'd do maybe 5 days down there, breaking up park days with pool/relaxing days as I know my kids need their down time.
I love that you bought groceries and came back to the hotel for lunch/snacks and naps! Such a smart way to save money!
We totally loved it! We were originally planning on 5 days there but then we wanted to be back in good time to enjoy NYE and not have to rush right back to work. I forgot about the difference in US dollars when booking through Disney so it was actually a couple hundred more for our resort/park fees than what I budgeted. Also, I usually get together over the Christmas holidays with a few girlfriends from high school and one had to fly out on the 31st so was only available to do dinner on the 30th which made it easy to cut a day off! 5 days I think would be just perfect. You guys will definitely have a blast! I have an entire post on how we saved money so hopefully you'll find that helpful!
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