We left the kids with my parents for the most part, but they were away for the first 2 days we were gone so I asked Tamara if she could have them and she was so nice to be able to do that! It was a Friday and Saturday, and luckily her kids were off school on the Friday so she had them to help, and no basketball yet on Saturday. Worked out well! I took the kids over to Tamara's house on Thursday night, since we'd be leaving early in the morning the next day. I got Leo sleeping in a playpen in the basement (which took a while...he really likes his own bed), and then I did the whole bedtime routine for Bentley and Deacon and made sure they were happy. They were so excited about the whole thing and all the sleepovers they'd be having! Leo was the one I was most nervous about.
The next morning we headed to the airport, feeling empty handed without the kids! It was so nice to be able to just relax on the airplane, though, and I actually thoroughly enjoyed the flight. I love the kids, but it is definitely necessary to get a break now and again to recharge and I was really in need of that. I got to read a book, listen to music, watch movies, it was great!
Our flight and transportation to our hotel went great. We stayed at Old Key West, which is a Disney resort. It was very pricy, but we wanted to stay next to the Lockings so it was worth it. It has 3 pools, lots of games and activities, and a boat that takes you to Disney Springs.
We bought an 8 day park pass so that we could go to all of the parks whenever we wanted. The first one we did was Hollywood Studios. We both loved the Rockin' Roller Coaster and how fast it takes off. We also loved the Tower of Terror and that's the only one I kind of remembered from when I was little (probably because I would have been terrified back then!). Jeff loved all of the Star Wars stuff, which I didn't care for because I'm not into it, but I was a good sport and of course the rides and everything were still a lot of fun. The Toy Story stuff was also all so cute! We did the slinky dog coaster and Toy Story mania where you aim at all the targets which we both loved too. I like rides, but I also really really enjoyed the shows. There were so many great ones! We saw the Frozen sing-along, the Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast. They were all so amazing, and I have to admit that I cried in the Frozen one...probably mostly because I saw a little girl playing with all the snow that was coming down from the roof and I pictured Bentley. We didn't meet a ton of characters, but I did want pictures with the ones I knew my kids would love so that we could send it to them. Bentley actually requested pictures with the princesses, and my mom said they loved looking at them while we were gone. Olaf was our first character meet, and probably my favorite. Anyways, we even stayed for the night show called Fantasmic, which was also incredible! It was a dream that Mickey had and it included all the disney characters, fountains, boats, etc. That day we were at the park from 7am (because it was magic hour, so less busy) until 10pm, only 15 hours! We're crazy!! But it was so fun. We also got a photo pass where we get pictures taken of us throughout the park, scan our wristbands and they send them all to us. That was a great idea to get some good pics!
The next park we went to was Epcot. This one was so much fun because they had the food and wine Festival going on, which means there are extra booths of gourmet food in small portions. So instead of eating out for dinner, we just walked "around the world" and tried food from almost every country. We were with Trevor and Rebecca for this and we would often each get one and share, so we would all have a bite or 2 from each plate. That way we could try more things, and it was so good! We'd also walk into the shops and do any shows or rides along the way as we worked our way around the world. In Norway we stopped in the "Frozen" bakery where I got the rainbow cheesecake, and we were sure to go on the Frozen ride. The wait for this one was the longest we waited for any ride in any park, being 1 hour. But it was worth it! Somehow, we managed to do really well with not waiting very long for rides by using our fast passes we had for each day. Jeff and I also sat through a time share presentation and got 4 extra fast passes each from that. We almost literally did every ride and show at every park! Very few were missed. We also met Elsa and Anna (which was a must for Bentley!), and Donald Duck. At this park we also loved the space rides (I was nervous about Mission Space, but I didn't get sick and it was pretty fun), test track, Nemo, Figment, and Soarin' was one of our faves! We also loved the aquarium, it was so neat! Also a random thing Jeff did was pick an Oyster and get a pearl from it. There was a whole big presentation with it and then they measured it, and he actually got a really big one! Kind of random but fun. We stayed for the night show here as well, which was completely worth it.
Animal Kingdom was next on the list and it was actually probably my favorite! Less busy than magic kingdom. We had the least amount of time here, but we still managed to do just about everything because we used an extra fast pass and it really wasn't that busy. Ryan and Angie said they hardly ever see it this empty! We went at a really good time. September is a great month because kids are just going back to school. Jeff and I started this park out on our own and got to explore a little bit by ourselves without a "guide" (meaning our friends haha!). A highlight for me at this park was the Kilimanjaro Safari, where you ride through and see lions, elephants, giraffes, crocodiles, etc. all right there with no fence in between us! It was so neat to see. I also really enjoyed the Lion King show, it was incredible. And there was a random parrot show that happened as we were walking and it was so cool, so many parrots flying over our heads and everywhere! Everything here was great though - there was also the bug show, the dinosaur ride (where I thought about Deacon the whole time!), the Avatar ride, and watching the gorillas. We skipped the Na'vi River ride because we didn't want to get soaking wet before our dinner plans. This was also the one park where we missed the night show, so we'll have to come back one day and watch it!
We went to Magic Kingdom twice - once for our reservation at "Be our Guest" and the night show, and then the other time with the Lockings for Mickey's "Not So Scary Halloween Party." On this day Jeff and I also went earlier before the Halloween party where we explored and did a lot in the park.
Dinner at Be our Guest was probably my favorite part of the whole trip! I booked it 6 months in advance and was lucky to even get a reservation then apparently. We went to the wrong entrance of magic kingdom so we ended up taking a ferry to get to the park, which actually turned out to be a lot of fun. When we arrived at the restaurant, we were told that the master would like to meet his guests so we waited in line and then got to meet the Beast! Then they took us into the Rose room where they had a big music box in the middle of Belle and her prince, and pictures everywhere. The waiter was dressed like the movie and would say things about what were Belle and the Beast's favorite on the menu, and make comments about how the dishes move. We got to take a look at the West Wing room, and the ball room, where the Beast would every so often make an entrance and walk around. We ordered drinks in these huge castle cups that lit up. The food was a 3 course menu and we got to choose what we wanted for each course, except dessert was the same for everyone. I ordered the tuna dish for an appetizer and lamb for my main course and it was absolutely to die for! I don't usually love lamb but this was amazing! Everything was great, and the dessert had a delicious macaroon, and the "grey stuff" in a little edible cup. After our dinner Jeff and I went to get a spot close to the castle for the night show. This show was SO good! Projections on the castle, fireworks, everything was so cool. It was such a great little date night for Jeff and I.
The next day we went to the park around noon and got in some rides and then the Lockings met us around 4 and we did a bunch of rides and shows with them. We all liked space mountain, splash mountain, big thunder mountain railroad, pirates of the caribbean, the haunted mansion, seven dwarfs mine train, and winnie the pooh's honey pots. The haunted mansion had live actors in it when the Halloween party started, and space mountain was in the complete dark. I'm not gonna lie, as the day went on I was really tired and almost felt like leaving, but I'm so glad we stuck around for the Halloween fun. The Halloween parade was absolutely amazing! Even better than the regular parade we had seen that morning. There was also a hocus pocus show beforehand that we didn't have the best seats for, but it looked good. Then as we were walking around we started seeing fireworks and apparently there was another show we didn't know was going on so we rushed to the castle to see the end of the fireworks show, which was great! We also got bags and got to go trick or treating. The one place adults don't feel silly doing so, and it was fun to see what different chocolate bars they had that I had never seen before. My favorite was the white chocolate twix! It was a fun night, but I was definitely ready for bed that day.
Our park pass also included a water park, so one day we went to Typhoon Lagoon for a few hours. They have some really fun waterslides and a pool with the biggest wave! We had a lot of fun, and I also looked at the little kids area and thought about how much fun the kids would have there. Another thing we loved to do was hit up Disney Springs. This is a shopping district that has a lot of great restaurants and entertainment too. We made the mistake of buying lots of stuff here and then later found an outlet mall where everything was so cheap! We did get some great stuff at both places though and had a lot of fun doing it. I loved the restaurant Raglan Road where they had Irish dancers, it was really fun to watch and they had great food! Wolfgang Puck was also good food, but the service was really bad unfortunately. It was fun to check out the massive Disney store and Lego store here as well and I could just walk around and be entertained by something, whether is was live music, a moving piano, or something else.
We also found some other great restaurants around the area. At the contemporary resort we ate at the California Grill, which was our biggest splurge when it came to food. It was very fancy, and very delicious! I remember the sushi appetizer I ordered was amazing. We also ate at Mama Melrose while we were at Hollywood Studios, which is an Italian place, and it was so good as well. One morning we even did a character breakfast at Cape May Cafe at the Beach Club resort. We were a little tired that morning, but it would be such a fun thing to do with kids. The buffet was massive!
Aside from all the busy fun we had, believe it or not we also had some time to relax. We had two days where we just sat by the pool or shopped, and the pool was great. We often went late at night after the parks and it felt so good to soak our feet in the hottub and then cool off in the pool. One day we also got a couples massage! I love massages more than anyone could know, and Jeff usually isn't a fan, but he knew I always wanted to do a couples massage so he did it for me. We ended in a resort and went into a little store where there was a professional makeup artist doing free makeovers. So Angie and I gladly volunteered and I actually loved the way he did my makeup! I wish I had him every day! It was so fun to just be chill and stumble upon random things to do.
I did pretty good with not missing the kids too much...until day 5. And even then I was pretty okay. On our travel day and the day before I got really antsy to go home and I even got butterflies as we were arriving at our house. We did lots of Skyping so I at least got to see and talk to them a little bit and my mom and Tamara were great at sending pictures to me so I at least knew they were having fun and doing okay without me. We brought them home the Disney candyland game, some disney slap bracelets, chocolate coins from the Halloween party, and our castle cups. Jeff also gave Bentley his pearl, and Deacon his goofy hat that he had bought and never worn. They were so excited to get their prizes and it was so much fun to see them again!! I felt ready and excited to get back to real life with them! Oh and one more thing...it snowed a lot a few days before we came back. So that was a pleasant surprise...haha jk. I would expect nothing less from Calgary though!
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