Magic Kingdom Day 2

Day 2 at Magic Kingdom was all about character signatures and riding our favorite rides again. The kids loved Pirates of The Caribbean, It's A Small World, and Peter Pan's Flight so we rode those again along with a few new rides.

Madison was all about seeing the Princess's. She was most excited about seeing Ariel as that is her favorite princess. We headed off to The Hall of Fame and found Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Tinkerbell and Rosetta. Caleb was hoping that the Beast would be walking around but he is only in the parades. Caleb wanted to find Woody and Buzz. Unfortunately we were never able to find Buzz but we did find Woody and he had Jessie with him :) He was also hoping to find Mr Incredible but we didn't find him either. The princess's are always in the same place but most of the other characters are just scattered throughout different parts of the parks so it makes it a little harder to find them.

Taylor and Ariel


Madison and Ariel




Taylor and Sleeping Beauty


Madison and Sleeping Beauty


Madison with Cinderella


Taylor and Cinderella


Caleb and Belle....loved the look on his face! This is the only Princess signature he got.


Taylor with Belle


Madison with Belle...love this sweet picture!


The girls with Tinkerbell


The girls with Rosetta


Madison with Woody and Jessie


Caleb with Woody and Jessie


Taylor with Woody and Jessie


At the end of the day Madison was pooped and fell asleep in the stroller :)

Pirates of the Caribbean

One of our favorite rides at Disney was Pirates of the Caribbean. We are huge fans of these movies (Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom definitely make the movie more appealing). Matt, Taylor, Caleb and myself have seen all 3 movies, in fact we have them on dvd, the IPOD and the external hard drive so we can take Johnny and Orlando with us where ever we go! Madison has seen pieces of the movies....she never sits through a whole movie unless it is a kid one. When we took Taylor to Disney when she was 4 this was one of her favorites rides. We knew the other 2 would love it as well and we weren't disappointed! We rode it numerous times. On our 2nd day at a Magic Kingdom we even ran into Barbosa and the kids got their picture taken with him :) Now if we only could have found Will Turner or Jack Sparrow walking around! That would have been one of the highlights of my trip :) With the huge success of the movies there have been some additions to the ride. They added Jack Sparrow throughout the ride. He is 3 or 4 places throughout the ride.

Pirates of the Caribbean


Jack Sparrow


Jack Sparrow hiding in a whiskey barrel






Taylor and Caleb posing with Barbosa

A Dream Come True Parade

There are a couple of different parades throughout the day at The Magic Kingdom. The biggest one is held each afternoon. It features the 4 main princess's as well as tons of other characters. People line up an hour before the parade starts in order to get a good view. We didn't do that though and still had front row seats...we got really lucky. The characters walked right up to the kids and interacted with them! It was a highlight of the trip!

The start of the parade!


Pluto, Chip and Dale


Mickey and Minnie


Snow White and her Prince


The Genie


Captain Hook


Cinderella's mice


Cinderella's Stepmother and Step-sisters. The step-sister in green and yellow (she is to the right in the picture) walked up to Caleb right after this picture was taken and asked him if he was "single and rich" :)


The Fairy Godmother


Cinderella and Prince Charming


Ariel


Woody and Jessie


Donald Duck

Typhoon Lagoon

Day 3 was our day at the water park, Typhoon Lagoon. It ended up being the coolest day that we had while there. Luckily though the water is heated to 82 degrees that day and it wasn't too cool, only 76. It ended up being the best day to go b/c with the cooler weather the park wasn't very crowded. We didn't have to wait in any lines to ride the slides. The kids all had their favorite areas in the park. Taylor loved the wave pool which produced 7 ft waves every few minutes. Caleb enjoyed the water slides. He rode his very first "body slide" and loved it! Madison loved the kiddie area. It had little water slides and lots of sprinklers. It was a perfect area for her.

The kids at front of the park.


Water shot out of the top of this ship every 10-15 minutes.


Matt and Taylor wading out to the deep part of the wave pool to await the waves.


Caleb going down the slide.


Madison going down the slide.


Matt, Taylor and Caleb coming down the "family" slide.


Taylo and Caleb going down Mayday Falls.




Madison going down a little river in Ketchakiddie Creek


The huge waves in the wave pool


Taylor, Matt and Caleb going down the body slides.

Animal Kingdom Part 2,,,,,The African Safari

One of the neatest things at Animal Kingdom is the African Safari. You get into this jeep and ride through the "African Plains." There are no fences...the animals just roam around wild. It is so neat as some of the animals are really close while the more dangerous ones are not so close to the path the jeep takes. The kids really enjoyed seeing the animals in their natural habitat.

Rhinos


A hippo


A bunch of alligators


I don't remember what these are called but look at those horns!


A beautiful giraffe


Elephants


See the lioness on top of the rock


This ostrich was very close...watch your fingers!

Animal Kingdom Part 1

Animal Kingdom was on the agenda for day 2 at Disney! We were really excited about Animal Kingdom....the safari and Mount Everest were 2 things we really couldn't wait to experience. Mount Everest is a roller coaster that everyone said was a must. There was also a dinosaur area that Caleb was super excited about as well as the Kali River Rapids which is a raft ride. Madison wasn't tall enough for Kali River Rapids so Nana and Peepaw sat out this ride. We talked my dad and Matt's mom into riding though and they got soaked! Had there been a wet shirt/pants contest they would have tied for 1st place! They had water dripping off them. The funny thing was we saw all these people getting off in ponchos and we kept saying "you can't get that wet", boy were we wrong! NaNa and Pops were such good sports!

We also knew that Animal Kingdom was a great place to see lots of characters and since it isn't as big of a park we were told the lines wouldn't be as bad...people were right, the lines for characters was super short. I think the longest we waited was maybe 10 minutes max!

Winnie the Pooh


Eyeore


Tigger


This huge tree called "The Tree of Life"...is has all these neat carvings in it!


Chip and Dale


Donald Duck


Minnie Mouse


Mickey Mouse


Mount Everest...very cool roller coaster!


The kids got their faces painted!

Taylor chose Tinkerbell


Madison wanted Tinkerbell too!


Caleb wanted a dinosaur :)


My sweet girls!

Magic Kingdom Day 1

Our first full day in Orlando we chose to head to the Magic Kingdom. We knew there was so much to do and we couldn't wait for the Caleb and Madison to get their first view of the place. We weren't disappointed in their reactions. Even Taylor who has been there before was in awe. There is something so magical about the place every time you go! We kinda had a plan.....do some rides, see some characters, repeat.

The girls at the entrance!


We started our adventure on Main Street,USA. Right after entering the park a employee approached us and offered to take a picture of the whole family.


We immediately spotted our first character...Pinoccohio. The line wasn't too long so we hopped into it and waited less than 5 minutes to get his signature/picture.

Caleb getting Pinoccohio's signature.


The girls getting a picture with Pinoccohio!


The girls on Main Street USA in front of Cinderella's castle.


Me and the kids after riding Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin :)


Exploring the Swiss Family Robinson's Treehouse...this was so neat!


One of our favorite rides (it will get a post all to it's self)


Our "guide" on the Jungle Book Cruise....this was another of everyone's favorite!


Everyone loved "It's a Small World" so we rode it a couple of times.




The girls and "The Sword and the Stone"


Madison and I riding Dumbo The Flying Elephant...I look a little rough after being rained on and I didn't realize Matt was taking a picture so I wasn't smiling.


Cinderella's castle at dusk...so magical!


Next stop.....Animal Kingdom!