DISNEY WORLD: Part 3

Day 5: Animal Kingdom

This was personal favorite day!  The feel of the day was a bit more relaxed and almost chilly at 73 degrees.  Another perfect weather park day.  We enjoyed seeing all the animals and doing the rides.  The kids were wilderness explorers and had to earn badges throughout the park by learning something about the animals.

This is the tree of life.  There are 325 different animals carved into this tree.  It is so neat to see and also to try and find the hidden mickey mouse on it.  We did not find it.

Here are some close ups of it.

One of the "rides" is a safari ride.  They have quite a few animals in that safari and the ones I remember..giraffes, ostrich, lions, elephants, gazelle and many more but can't remember.  No fences so you could see the animals good.  I really liked the safari and then best part is the line was 60minutes long but for whatever reason a worker put us RIGHT on.  No waiting!  That was awesome!

Ella's favorite animal!

Lion King, one of my favorite disney movies

My second, close first ride was the Avatar Flight of Passage.

This was another simulator ride.  You got on these seats, like motorcycles, but it is supposed to be your banshee that you will be riding.  They lock you in at your back and your legs.  It was awesome!  It really feels like you are flying thru the trees with the wind and over the ocean as you get sprayed with water.  My stomach still felt the drop as we flew straight down.  At one point the banshee takes a break on a branch and at your legs, the seat goes in and out, like it is breathing heavy from flight.  

We all enjoyed the ride but Eli was soo crazy excited and over the top about the ride the employee thought we needed a re-ride.  So he put us straight thru for another ride.  We skipped the over hour long line.  SCORE!!!

The kids doing their wilderness badge and doing their bear face

Eli found his "mingos!"  He kept asking if every bird we saw was a flamingo.  So when we did find them he was super excited!

This was easily my favorite day!  The weather was perfect and just a nice easy day with bonus of re-ride and getting on the safari right away.  It was Ella's favorite day as well.

Day 6: Magic Kingdom

This was the second day at this park and I had almost forgotten what we had done on monday so it was nice to get a refresher and re-ride the rides we did on monday and ride the ones we missed.  The weather was chilly with a high of 64 so we wore sweatshirts all day.  It was colder in Florida on Saturday than it was in Ottumwa.  I would have taken another sunny 75 day, but at least it didn't rain!

Of course I needed a picture of the kids with their ears on in front of the castle!

Dumbo ride, with Ella by herself behind me and Eli and Joey behind her up high

Team Mickey!

One of 2 family pictures we have our masks off for and that is because we were eating lunch.

Cars!  My drivers were not that good.

Not sure Dad's driver was any better!

Eli finally decided to ride splash mountain.  He didn't ride it on the first MK day.  Turns out he liked it!

This photo from Splash mountain cracks me up!  I don't know why I look like I am so scared and then Ella with her arms straight up!  This is so funny!!!

Cotton candy mess!

More parades and more characters

Mine ride!

I decided I better put my phone away before I lost it!  But here is a quick mine ride video.

After Magic Kingdom we were all cold so we went to the hot tub to get warm.  Picture #2 with out our masks on.  

And on Sunday, we had a little time before we needed to pack up so the girls and I headed over disney springs.  It technically opens at 10am but the line for Gideons cookies starts way before 10am.  I just happened to get in line not too far back and couldn't decide if I wanted to stand in line and if I had enough time to.  So after about 15 minutes, I decided I was staying.  Of course, some friends that already left put in another order for me to pick some up for them.  I cannot believe that I stayed in line for an hour for cookies!  I also cannot believe they are gone already! ;)

We had a really GREAT vacation, but feel like we need a vacation from our vacation.  We were on the go the entire time.  Here was our step count for the week!  We had a great time though and I hope that all of kids will remember this trip!   I am not sure if we went back we would have as good of an experience but from what I am told, we would.  And since not everything was open due to the low capacity, it would be a different experience if we went again.  My favorite thing from the trip was seeing my kids reactions all the way through the week!  From the perfectly timed cool weather days, to meeting up with friends, to the hot tub being RIGHT IN FRONT of our hotel room so Joey and I could enjoy it after kids went to bed, to the bonus rides and no wait times, this was a top vacation for sure! 

And since we have gotten home and back to school Ella had wrote her experience at Disney World for school! =)

DISNEY WORLD: Part 2

 Day 3 was our day off of parks, so shopping and swimming is what it was!  Mon-Wed we had sunny and HOT weather so this was perfect to have as a pool day.  It also happened to be St. Patricks day so we all wore our green.  We went shopping at Disney Springs which was an 8 minute walk from our hotel room.  First thing we did was get in a virtual line for cookies.  So I gave them my phone number and they texted me when I could come get cookies.  I wasn't sure I was really going to stand in line for cookies but this worked out.  So after we gave Gideon's my phone number we went shopping.

So while we "waited" we had lunch reservations and shopping to do.  After our lunch reservations they texted me so we waited in about a 20 minute line for cookies.  Others in the group had given me some orders and of course I was going to try them!  All in all we had 15 cookies and Joey made it clear that at nearly 1/2lb each he was glad he made the trip back to the hotel to drop them off and not carry them.  These are really good cookies.  This one below is PB swirl!  I highly recommend!!

We had lunch reservations at T-REX and this was for the kids mostly.  The dinosaurs came to life and moved and roared. And about every 10-15 minutes or so a storm would come and the lights would flash and Dinos came to life.  The kids enjoyed it. 

Here is Eli being silly and cute at the restaurant.

After Josie thought about if she wanted this Minnie back pack, she decided she was going to buy it.  I am glad she thought about it! 

Eli being cute in his hat he got

Josie on the bridge to Disney springs

Pool Time! and Beer time!

Later on Wednesday we went over to the Art of Animation hotel so all of us groups could get together.  The kids swam and us adults talked. 

Here is everyone: Abernathys, Kools, Palens and Shultzs

Then we took the disney transportation back to our hotel to go to bed.  The other 3 families were leaving on Thursday.  We still had until Sunday.

Day 4: Epcot

Epcot we did not have enough time here.  We had dinner reservations at disney springs at 4:45 so we had to leave early to get our reservations.  Epcot you can travel the world in each "country" they have.  They had kidcot cards they could collect at each country and it would have a fact about the country on it and an activity on the back.  There were not a ton of rides.  The gardens were so pretty and the characters sculpted in the bushes were neat.  I think the was the kids least favorite park but we just did not have enough time to get into each country and explore.

Our weather was PERFECT!  It was sunny and 75 and the way you would want to do a disney park!

We found Minnie and Mickey at epcot!  Score!

Ella being grown up!

Character parade

Donald and Daisy duck

Frozen ride with Elsa and Anna bushes

Some random troll...but Joey is in a picture.

We rode a little mermaid ride and the ride took us through the aquarium.  So they built the aquarium around the ride and implemented the fish in the tank into the ride.  It was pretty cool.  The aquarium is HUGE!  They had a manatee, sharks and dolphins.  We stayed the longest at the aquarium but then had to leave.

Epcot was Joey's favorite park.

At Raglan Road and Irish pub we ordered an Irish Beer flight.  They had Irish Step dancers and live Irish music.  We would loved to have had the reservations on St. Patricks day (the day before) but we took what we could get.  The kids liked seeing the dancers and hope the violin player sparked their interest in keeping going with the violin lessons.

It had been a really long time since we have been able to see live music and entertainment.