I decided to take Connor on an impromptu trip to Disney World at the end of our summer in the USA. Harry's mom had a conference to go to in Orlando so we decided to tag along. I was more than a little hesitant to go because it was so hot and with school about to start I knew the crowds would be ridiculous. It was October the first time we went and I remember thinking there was no way I would go in the summer. It was fairly warm then so I knew it would be miserably hot to be in the parks during the summer. Well again, I learned my lesson...never say never. The things we do for our children! I wasn't about to bring Jameson with us so he stayed with my sister for the week and off we went! I decided to leave a day earlier than Harry's mom and sister so it was just me and Connor spending some quality time together for the whole first day and a half. So much fun!
Traveling just the two of us was awesome for so many reasons, not the least of which was the lack of luggage! We checked one bag and I only had a backpack to go through security with. After we went though security I grabbed my backpack off the conveyor belt and Connor looked at me really confused and asked, "Where's the rest of our stuff?" Now that is a kid that has become used to traveling internationally with four people! So funny! I had to convince him that a backpack was all we had.
We spotted a rainbow on our decent into Orlando!
Caught our ride on the magical express!
We stayed our first night at Pop Century at Disney since we wouldn't be checking into the conference hotel until the next day when Harry's mom arrived.
Day one - Magic Kingdom!
Guess we need sunglasses.
First stop was lunch at Casey's Corner. He was a little excited to be there :)
Caught a parade while there!
Souvenir for the day...check!
We caught the end of the parade after getting his sunglasses.
We had a great time, just the two of us enjoying the park!
One of our favorites!
The Buzz Lightyear ride is serious business.
So we didn't have fastpasses for the new Mine Train ride. They were unavailable for both days we would be at Magic Kingdom when I booked everything. Even though it's just a small coaster, I didn't know how much he would like it but he insisted that we ride it. I dreaded the 90 minutes standby wait time, but I wanted to ride it too so we reluctantly got in line. It was SO HOT!!! The beginning of the line was outside of the fence...in the direct sunlight. It. Was. Miserable. He was staying strong in his desire to ride it though so we stuck it out.
FINALLY we made it inside the air conditioned part of the line and we had fun playing with all the interactive stuff.
Here we go! I tried to get him to put his arms up when we went over the drops, but he just held his belly. I could tell that he was caught between loving it and hating it. Haha! When we got off he screamed, "That was AWESOME!" I asked him if he wanted to go back on it he said, "Oh no. Nope. No, no." LOL
Of course we had to hit the Dole stand.
After we got back to our hotel we headed to the food court for supper and got caught in a downpour! The sidewalks were flooded and we got soaked. No newspaper to stick in our shoes and we couldn't put them in the dryers in the laundromat so we had to improvise!
Who doesn't jump on hotel beds?!?
Not long after we laid down to go to sleep I kept hearing a banging sound that I thought was the people next to us slamming their door. After this went on for a few minutes I stuck my head outside and realized that it was the firework show at Hollywood Studios that we could see from our balcony! We jumped out of bed and enjoyed the show. It was a Frozen themed show. We were even able to hear the music!
We had a great first day at the park!
Before I told Connor that we would be going to Disney, I asked him what he would like to do if we ever went back. He was quick to say that he wanted to eat breakfast at that place with Jake and Handy Manny so I decided that would be our character breakfast of the trip. We had an early reservation before the park opened so we took advantage of getting a few pics on the empty street.
He had a blast!
Another reason why he wanted to go back to Hollywood & Vine.
Up next was our fastpass for the other thing he asked to do again. Toy Story Mania, of course!
Here we go!
Afterwards we walked across the street to visit his favorites!
We settled in a semi-shaded place to wait for the Frozen parade. He was fading fast and our day wasn't even close to being done. I may or may not have been having fun at his tired expense :)
Snowing. In August. In Orlando, Florida...yep, we're at Disney World!
I have NO idea how these people did this with all that winter clothes on and managed to keep a smile on their face.
Next up, another favorite - Disney Junior Live.
It's just puppets coming out of the floor, but he loves it!
We decided to go visit Sorcerer Mickey while waiting for MiMi and Maria to arrive. He got a quick lesson in wizardry!
Finally we met up with Harry's mom and sister and headed to catch the Beauty and the Beast show.
After the show we had some time to kill while waiting for our dinner reservation and Fantasmic. We decided that we would wait it out in the standby line for Toy Story so Mrs. Mae and Maria could ride it. We waited and waited and waited. At one point there was some excitement going on quite a bit down the line from us. Turns out, the parents of the people in front of us were trying to get through the line to meet them and some guy in line along the way wasn't going to let it happen. The son went to try and sort it out while the daughter explained they had been dragging their elderly parents around all day and they just went to use the restroom and were trying to meet them back in line. First off, they were in their 60's...not elderly in my book. Second, I get it...after having people cut you in line to go "meet their family" so many times you want to put your foot down and say uh uh. BUT...I would never cause a scene like this guy did in line at Disney World in probably one of, if not the most popular ride. It's just not that important. The guy ended up having his family (including his wife and young children) create a barricade so that the couple couldn't pass. The son of the couple and the guy refusing to let them pass were going at it. I could not believe it. A castmember even tried to get the guy to move and he refused, so she took the couple and brought them to the front of the line where they could join their family when they got up there. Geez! It made for a really awkward encounter when we passed them in the queuing line since the children and grandchildren of the people trying to get through were in front of us. Ha! Finally we were just steps away from our turn. We could see the bins to get our glasses when all of a sudden they evacuated us from the building because of problems with the ride! What?! After all of that and over an hour waiting in line, none of us even got to ride!! Ugh! I don't think it reopened for the rest of the day.
We moseyed around Hollywood Studios while waiting for dinner and Fantasmic. We didn't go to the Fantasmic show on our last trip so I was really looking forward to it. I have to say...it was quite disappointing. It was a pretty good show, but it didn't live up to the hype in my opinion.
After the show we hopped on the bus back to Pop to get our luggage and then took a taxi to the conference hotel. We were exhausted after another great day!
Our last day in Disney was going to be a busy one, but this cool wizard was ready! We planned to hit our favorites at every park!
I scheduled all our fastpasses for the afternoon in Magic Kingdom so we spent all morning hopping around the other parks. Since our attempt for Maria to ride Toy Story the day before was an epic fail we went straight there! We got there before the park even opened and still waited in line for about 45 minutes! It was worth it though!
Next up...face painting!
After we got our fill of Hollywood Studios, we headed to Animal Kingdom for The Lion King and lunch. We love this show!
I had a little trouble with our fastpasses the day before and ended up loosing our passes for Soarin. The really nice guy that helped me out ended up giving me an extra pass for Soarin that I could use any time in addition to the three that they let you get. Score! After lunch we went over to Epcot to take advantage of it! Harry and I loved it on our first trip, but Connor wasn't tall enough to ride yet. I was a little worried about him liking it, but he loved it as much as we did!
Finally we were on our way to the fourth and last park of the day. We grabbed some ice cream and a spot on the second floor of the train station to relax and wait for the parade.
This was a new parade that they didn't have on our first trip. One of the best ones!
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering Magic Kingdom. We checked out Fantasyland where I was pretty disappointed in the new Little Mermaid ride given the hard to get fastpasses. I probably wouldn't waste time doing it again. We also checked out some of Connor's favorites...Peter Pan and Small World. We were starting to hit a brick wall so we grabbed some dinner and found a spot on Main Street to wait for the evening festivities.
My favorite parade!
Celebrate the Magic! Super cool! Here you can see the massive crowd of people. Not cool!
And finally, Wishes Nighttime Spectacular! It was a great show, but we were beyond ready to go. We set out to do it all on our final day and I think we did it!
Our last day in Orlando was spent at Universal Studios.
Connor loves these kinds of rides! They remind me of small town fair type stuff, but he would ride this over and over.
Little break for some moose juice!
After checking out the Dr Suess stuff we got in line for Spiderman. We waited a long time...well over an hour. It seemed like the line was never ending, but it was sooooo worth it! Awesome, awesome ride! Connor loved it until the very end when it feels like you are falling off the building. He wasn't having it anymore after that!
We had been watching the Harry Potter movies in anticipation of going to Universal Studios. I had never seen the movies so I wanted to have a clue what it was all about. Connor was hooked on the movies. He loved them, although we eventually had to stop letting him watch though because it got to be a little too scary and he didn't want to sleep in his bed anymore.
First stop...butterbeer! So good!
Here you can see the ominous storm clouds starting to roll in.
It wasn't long before it was pouring! We were soaked so we decided it would be a good time to call it an early day and head back to the hotel. We had a nice relaxing evening at the hotel and got ready to fly home the next morning. After getting home I had just enough time to get showered and head back to the airport to pick Harry up! Our summer in the states was coming to a close and he was coming back to visit and get us before we all went back to Saudi. It was a short and exhausting trip, but we had a fabulous time!
No comments:
Post a Comment