MAGIC KINGDOM- Day 5

Our fifth and final park day was at Magic Kingdom.  The weather was warming up and it was going to be a beautiful day!  We got up extra early to rope drop the extra magic hour.  I would say we were in the first 150 people there that morning.  We scanned in and they held us right at the tunnel.  Then they let us down Main Street.  We headed to Tomorrowland.  We wanted to ride Space Mountain and didn't have fast passes so that was where we were headed. Hope and I got in line first while Patrick and John took the kids on Buzz Lightyear.  When we got to the queue for Space Mountain the posted time was 50 minutes.  We waited maybe 20. 

The guys decided they didn't want to ride Space Mountain so they headed to Tomorrowland Speedway and we caught up with them right as they were getting in the cars so we snapped some pictures of them.  

Barrett thought he was big stuff getting to drive.  AveryAnn was killing me in those sunglasses. 

After that we headed to the Tea Cups. 

These girls had the best week together.  They were so dang cute!

The girls wanted to ride the Tea Cups again so we did.  I can't remember what the boys did.  After the Tea Cups we headed back to Buzz Lightyear so we could all ride it again before the wait got crazy.

It'd been a long week. ha!  

After Buzz we headed to the Barnstormer.  My kids are not thrill seekers.  We told them it wasn't really a roller coaster, and to me it isn't.  Their opinion was very different.  They were so excited until we started going and then they both cried the entire time.  I'm not sure if that makes us good parents or not but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

After Barnstormer we decided to grab some snacks.  We had about 28 snack credits left on Friday so we tried to burn through as many of them as we could.

AveryAnn and I rode Dumbo and Patrick and Barrett went to ride People Mover.  

After that we used our first fast pass on The Voyage of the Little Mermaid.  I got to ride with both the girls and they were so dang cute!  Madelyn became my little buddy this day and I loved it!

After Little Mermaid we rode Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.  Barrett didn't want to ride it so Patrick and I rode.  We laughed so much!  

We had some time to kill before our lunch reservation so we headed to Prince Charming's Regal Carousel.  Sweet times all four of us together.

 Our lunch reservation was at Be Out Guest.

We had dinner here last trip and I loved it so much.  They changed the dinner menu though and I didn't feel like it was worth two dining credits so we tried lunch since it's quick service.  I'll be honest, I didn't love it for lunch.  We made the mistake of not mobile ordering and probably waited 30 minutes just to order.  I felt like the order process at the kiosk was complicated.  

The Master's Cupcake topped with "grey stuff" was worth it though.  I love this restaurant so much for the atmosphere but I don't think i'll do lunch again.  I want to try it for breakfast. ( I actually had breakfast reservations booked for an upcoming day trip to see my niece in the parade but the trip got cancelled).

While we were at lunch I decided to cancel our fast pass to meet Mickey so we could get more fast passes.  I was able to snag one for Aladdin. 

There was a photo pass photographer right outside Be Our Guest so I wanted to snap some pictures since we were all dressed in our Beauty and the Beast gear.

I love these people so much.

After this we headed to Adventureland to hit Aladdin and Pirates, I'd hoped we could do Jungle Cruise too but the wait was too long.

We also went up in the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse.  Then we headed to Haunted Mansion.

While we were in line I grabbed fast passes for the girls to meet Rapunzel and Tiana.  AveryAnn is very into Tiana so she was so excited! 

Tiana was beautiful!

Gosh, I seriously can't get enough of these sweet pictures.

I hope these girls remember this trip forever! 

Headed to meet the boys and head to our last dinner.

Our last dinner was Chef Mickey's. 

We were all exhausted by this point in the week.

(If I had this to plan again I think I would have stayed at the park and then made brunch reservations on the day we left for Chef Mickey's.  The way we did it was fine but I wish we could have stayed at MK longer Friday night and I like breakfast more than dinner at Chef Mickey's).

We had a great dinner though and it was nice to all eat the last meal together.  We didn't do everything together the whole trip and it was nice to split up but it was also nice when we all got to be together.

 It was sweet night to end the week.

We slept in a little on Saturday and then got up and packed up to head home.  We still had a ton of meal credits so I went to food court and got us breakfast.  Then we went back and used all 20+ snack credits to buy goodies to bring back.  We made good time traveling home.  

It was a really fun, special week.  I know it will be a while before we get to go back and the kids will be so much older.  It's all so bittersweet!  I wish we could go back this year.  I feel like our kids are at "their" perfect ages for Disney.  Tall enough for everything they wanted to ride but still loved the magic of the characters and the dark rides.  It was truly a magical week.

That's not to say everything was perfect because it most definitely was not.  But looking back I have such great fondness for the week we had together!

Disney World- Hollywood Studios

Our last day was spent in Hollywood Studios.  I'd also never been to this park.  We got there at rope drop.  Our plan was to head straight to Pixar Place so the boys could be meet Woody and Buzz.

We waited maybe 10 minutes.

Barrett was a little nervous so he stuck close to Patrick. 

Green Army men.  I'm not sure how they weren't suffocating in those outfits.  It was so hot.

After we met Woody and Buzz the stand by line for Toy Story Mania was 10 minutes so we did that really quick.  We had a fast pass for later in the day but we knew the boys would want to do it again.  It was a lot of fun!  I liked it more that Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin at Magic Kingdom.  It was 3D and I thought the different games were fun. 
Then we went to ride Tower of Terror.  Just Jeremy and I rode it and it was so much fun.  I wanted to ride it again but I never did.  After that we went to see the Disney Jr Live show.  It was really cute and all three kids really enjoyed it. 
Then we went to lunch. Jeremy and Jessica, Jackson and Barrett watched some sort of Star Wars thing while Patrick and I went ahead and got started on lunch.  We ate at Dockside something and I had a foot long chili cheese dog that was delicious.

These ducks were walking on the bushes and then they would fly at your table wanting food.

After lunch we walked around a little more and it was just so dang hot. 

I'm going to go ahead and say it, Hollywood Studios is my least favorite park.  I loved the rides they had but there just wasn't too much else to do.  I guess I should say there wasn't much else we wanted to do.  Barrett was not a fan of the shows so we didn't do any of those.  We probably should have tried to do more of them, if only so we could sit in the air conditioning.  We rode Toy Story Mania again.  Everyone except me, Barrett and AveryAnn rode the Great Movie Ride.  There was a point after lunch that I was over it.  I was so hot, AveryAnn was hot.  I needed to feed her but I wanted to sit in ac.  We finally found a little coffee type shop.  We got drinks and just relaxed for a bit.  We were trying to figure out our fast passes.  The night before a man had given us 4 fast passes for anything and a rider swap fast pass for Rockin' Roller Coaster.  So we were trying to figure out how to use them.

We worked it out to use fp for Indiana Jones.  Barrett thankfully fell asleep because he wouldn't have liked the loud explosions.  But overall it was fun.  I feel like it was so iconic from my childhood I knew I wanted to see it. 

After Indiana Jones we decided to use the fast pass for Rockin' Roller Coaster.

It was so much fun!  I wish we could have rode it again. 

It started raining as soon as we came out and sprinkled so we sat under a cover.  Then we headed to where dinner was.  It started pouring again.  I was so hot that I didn't even put on my poncho.  Which was fine until we sat down for dinner and my shirt was soaking wet. 

We had dinner at Mama Melrose and again it didn't disappoint.  We laughed so much at dinner. 

After dinner we went back so the boys could ride Toy Story Mania one last time.  We also promised the boys we would get them Slinky Dog toys.  Well of course we get to the little store and they only have one slinky dog so Barrett got Rex and Jackson got Slink Dog.

Oh and they also got light sabers.

Can you tell their parents are suckers?

Our last picture.  We're all still friends so I consider this trip a success. 

My thoughts on Hollywood Studios.  It wasn't my favorite.  Maybe if it hadn't been so hot I would have enjoyed it more.  I think for girls that like Beauty and the Beast and Little Mermaid and Frozen it's probably a lot of fun or if  you like Star Wars.  We should have done Frozen Sing-a-long but we didn't.  I think it will be better when they finish Toy Story Land.  It's a half day park for me right now.  I wish we would have planned to spend half a day there and another half day at Epcot.  Also it's hot and there aren't many indoors quick service restaurants so I didn't feel like we ever got to really cool off and there didn't seem to be as many places to get free ice water as in other parks.  If we go back before Toy Story Land is finished I would just do this park as a half day.  I wouldn't want to miss Tower of Terror, Rockin' Roller Coaster or Toy Story Mania but I wouldn't want to spend all day there either.  We were sad to leave the park because it was our last day. 

We got up Saturday morning and started getting packed to head home.

We truly had a wonderful, magical vacation.  We can't wait to go back.  I was honestly shocked that Patrick had as much fun as he did.  I think Barrett was at a perfect age he really loved it.  He still talks about the Magic Kingdom and Buzz.  He says next time he wants to go inside the castle.  I can't wait to take AveryAnn when she's closer to Barrett's age and see it all again through her eyes! 

Disney World- Magic Kingdom again

I was looking forward to day 4 the most.  This was the day that I scored reservations at Be Our Guest.  Beauty and the Beast is my all time favorite Disney movie so getting to eat in the beast's castle had me absolutely giddy.  (Spoiler alert: it did not disappoint!)

AveryAnn did not sleep good Wednesday night.  I don't really know what was going on but she woke up several times and I ended up putting her in the bed with me and then I didn't sleep because I worried about her being in the bed with me (and Barrett).

We were trying to make rope drop but we were all riding the struggle bus.  These two did not want to get up.  I was dragging I was still so tired.  We got there just a little after rope drop but the line for the 7 dwarfs mine train was already more than we wanted to wait.  I can't for the life of me remember what we did first. 

Our first fast pass was for Buzz lightyear.  Jeremy and I rode Space mountain before and it was only ok.  After Expedition Everest, all the other roller coasters were only ok.

Barrett looks terrified in this picture. Patrick looks so intense.

AveryAnn and me.  I didn't do great on this one.  I'm blaming it on the baby being in the way.

I love this picture of Patrick and Barrett.

We also rode the Astro Orbitor.  I thought it was like Dumbo, and it is except its really high and a lot faster.  Barrett wasn't a fan.  He rode with their rocket all the way at the bottom the whole time.  I think we rode Dumbo and Haunted Mansion.  Patrick, Barrett and AveryAnn did not ride Haunted Mansion.  We ate lunch at Pinocchio Village Haus.  It was good.  We rode Prince Charming's Regal Carousel.   The wait for Winnie the Pooh was short so we hopped in that line and it seemed like it was forever.  We had a fast pass to Meet Mickey around 1:15 so we did that next.

This Mickey talked and Barrett was not as excited about him. 

After we met Mickey The Horton's headed back to the room for naps, while the Moore's stayed in the park since Jackson would nap in the stroller.  We had late reservations and I did not want Barrett's exhaustion ruin it. He ending up falling asleep on the bus and then wouldn't nap when we got into the room.  But it was better than nothing. 

I changed them into these cute outfits.  I ordered AveryAnn's outfit before she quit gaining weight so it's a little big on her. 

I got them these monogrammed ears before we left the park earlier in the day.  Barrett was so excited.

When I put this shirt on him he goes "Hey, who's this guy?"  So I told him he's the beast and we're going to eat dinner in his castle.  I was definitely more excited than he was.

We headed back to the park around 6:00.  We rode the tea cups, probably Buzz Lightyear again.  (we rode it so many times I lost count)  We were doing whatever we could to pass the time before our dinner reservation. 

Then it was finally time for our reservation.  This restaurant is absolutely beautiful. 

It really feels like you're walking right into the beast's castle. 

We ate in the ballroom.  It was perfect.  It looks like it's snowing outside the windows.  Barrett looked up and Patrick and was so excited and said "daddy it's snowing!" then he said "Santa Claus is coming!" ha!  The Beast walked in and everyone claps. 

I had the shrimp and scallop pasta and it was so good. 

For dessert I'd read that the grey stuff was delicious, but that the brownie it is served on was only ok so I knew I wanted to try it but because I love food, I knew I wanted to actually eat the strawberry cupcake. So I convinced Patrick to get the grey stuff and I got the strawberry cupcake.  So everyone was happy.

After dinner the Beast was receiving guests in his office so AveryAnn and I went to meet him.  (Barrett was scared and Patrick did not care)  I love this picture of me because I was so ridiculously excited to meet him.  I was a little star struck.

He is huge!!!

AveryAnn couldn't have cared less about him.  But it was one of the top moments of the trip for me.

After dinner the wait for the 7 dwarfs Mine Train was 10 or 15 minutes so we decided to try to ride it really quick.  Jackson was just barely too short and he was so upset.   But the cast member gave him a little card to go to the front of the line when he comes back and is tall enough.  It was so sweet, I cant wait for him to cash it in!  It was fun but not exactly a thrill ride to me. 

We were able to watch some of the electrical parade as we were walking out.  I'm a little sad we didn't see all of the electrical parade since it's leaving but we were able to ride so many things during the parade and still see parts of it.  I was sad as we were leaving because it was our last day in Magic Kingdom and we only had one day left of vacation.  I also knew it would be a few years before we were back and I wish I could bottle Barrett's enthusiasm for the magic at this age because I know it will probably be long gone by the next time we visit.