Part 4: Hollywood Studios

We had a late start on Friday due to an expensive and lengthy breakfast (will explain in another post)! We headed to Hollywood Studios on Friday mid afternoon. We knew we didn't need much time at this park as a lot of the rides are for bigger kids....like my favourite--Tower of Terror. I wasn't able to go on that ride, or the Aerosmith roller coaster...sniff sniff. One ride that Paige was really excited about at this park was Toy Story Mania. We had watched some previews online before we came here. Of course the ride was jam packed with an hour wait. We chose to watch a Little Mermaid live show first, hoping that the line would die down. Paige's favourite part of the show was when "Ariel's father made her a princess", but she was scared of Ursula the sea witch.

After the show, the Toy Story line up was only 40 minutes long so we decided to wait. It seems like forever, but at least the line is moving quite quickly. And there was a lot of stuff to look at in the lineup.

Huge Barrel of Monkeys and board games on the ceiling:

Rose looking around:

Giant crayons:

Talking mister potato head. The way his mouth moved made him look real. Crazy.


Toy story mania was a 3D ride where you sat in a car that moved on a track and spun around a bit. Wearing 3D glasses you had to use a little gun to shoot at things in arcade style games on huge screens. A small screen in the car showed our scores. Paige: 5700, Mommy: 82,000, Daddy: 120,000, Rose: 0.

We didn't take any more photos mainly because we were a bit rushed and then it was dark outside! We attempted to go to 2 or 3 rides that had already closed by the time we got there...frustrating. So we headed over to Muppet Vision 3D after dinner for our last attraction, which turned out to be a pretty fun 3D movie. Paige was standing on her chair and leaning over the seat in front of her to try to catch things that were flying out of the screen. The park closes at 7:00 so some of the live shows and the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground closed up early. So basically we only did a few things. I wouldn't go to this park again with kids this age. It was fun to see the few things we did, but I think Paige would have just as much fun if we'd just gone back to Magic Kingdom again! It was pretty cold that night too, which was a bit of a bummer.

Part 3: Breakfast at chef Mickey's and Shopping day at Downtown Disney

A month or so ago, I reserved a breakfast time at Chef Mickey's, which is at the Disney Contemporary resort. At the time I obviously didn't know it would be the one morning of pouring rain. Score! We had nice indoor plans. Nice to keep the Disney theme alive, but with a day of rest from the theme parks.

Below is Rose waiting patiently outside the restaurant. As an aside, Rose has been a very very good baby. She has been eating her food amazingly, which has occupied her greatly at any restaurant. We feed her while we wait and she nibbles on cheerios while we eat. And she has still been doing fabulously in her stroller with very few naps. And only the one major meltdown before the late night fireworks. And her teeth! OMG, her top ones are huge now and you can completely see them out and teeth-like, and she has 3 more that have come through slightly. She is the noisiest sleeper ever and moves around all night long mouth breathing (she still has a small cold) and making noise. I constantly think she's waking up when she's not. For us to do this many days at Disney with a baby, well, I basically think we rock. We can probably do anything now.

No, Paige isn't drinking coke, it's her only drink of choice of course--milk.

First up to our table: Chef Donald! The characters wander around the restaurant hitting every table. We had a nice table in the quieter section of the restaurant beside a window with views of the Cinderella castle in the distance. The waitress informed us when the characters would be coming so we knew when to go get our buffet breakfast.

Mickey dancing for the celebration song.

As Mickey was signing her autograph book, Paige gave me a look of disbelief that Mickey was right there! We thought the autograph book would be good for Paige as we knew she wouldn't talk to the princesses or characters. It was a way for her to interact with them without feeling nervous. She kept handing the book over as soon as they came.

Right before Paige posed for this picture, Mickey went over to Rose and hugged or touched her or something and the pouty lip came out followed by full on crying. I wish I had a picture.

With Pluto. Rose wasn't too sure about him either.

Minnie was so cute looking:

She was ok with Minnie:
With the last character of the morning, Goofy:

Rose was doing good by this point:

Super yummy tiny Mickey waffles. Paige likes to eat them straight up. With her hands and no toppings. They also had the usual--pancakes, fruit, eggs and bacon. All very good.

After Chef Mickey's, we drove to Downtown Disney, which is a shopping and restaurant area. It is home to the largest Disney store in the world. Huge. HUGE! They had everything. We spent a large chunk of money there. I knew it was there so we saved buying anything major until we got there. For the entire vacation we have seen little girls in princess dresses and Paige wanted in on that. She had talked about it for a couple of days, and we thought it was a good souvenir. She can wear it to the parks and people call her a princess, etc. I asked her which costume she would like and she picked Cinderella right away. A perfect choice with her blonde hair, I thought. You can see in the picture below that they had all the other options: Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Tiana, Snow White, etc. We needed to try it on to ensure it fit, and she wanted to continue wearing it, so she wore it all through the store as we shopped. It was cold outside, so she could just wear it on top of her clothes. She needed an XXS size. Not sure it will fit next year, but yet another benefit of having 2 girls!

Paige also spent some of her "pocket money" and got a tinkerbell doll dress up thing. We got a special photo album to put our pictures in, a coffee mug, a magnet, and a present for Lizzy!! While we were shopping some ladies from the Bippidi Boppidi Boutique came over and sprinkled glitter all over Paige's hair, trying to plug their services. Basically they do these--what I have come to think of as--horrific princess makeovers on little girls. Slicked back glittery hair with poufy ponytail hair extension, makeup and nail polish. With the dress it is over a hundred dollars. Paige looks far far cuter in her dress au natural, even with the messy hair. She was happy with the glitter in her hair though of course. And she did tell me, however, later on that she wants "little kid nail polish". I told her when she was 4 she could have some.

After visiting a Toy Story store, and a Lego store, we went to eat at the T-Rex cafe, which is like the Rainforest Cafe, but with animatronic dinosaurs. There was a "meteor shower" every 15 minutes where the dinosaurs went crazy and the lights changed. Fun for Paige's dinosaur obsession.

The rest of the day was spent grocery shopping and relaxing in the room with toys.

Part 2: Magic Kingdom by afternoon/Night

On Wednesday we decided to finish up what we had missed at the Magic Kingdom as well as watch the fireworks at night. It made sense to rest up during the day and go mid afternoon to the theme park. In the morning Mike and Paige went swimming while I read a book and Rose napped. By the time Rose woke up, Mike and Paige were done with swimming, but we walked around the property for a bit with Rose in her stroller and took a few pictures (will come in a later post). By 3:00ish we were all rested up and ready for more rides!

This day was amazing. No clouds and low 20's. Perfect for t-shirt weather. We headed straight for Tomorrowland and reserved a fastpass for the Buzz Lightyear ride. In the meantime we went to the Monster's Inc Laugh Floor which was an interactive comedy show. Very funny.

Paige standing with the laugh collector.

Oooh blue goo!
Rose got to ride the Buzz Lightyear ride. Mike and Paige were in a separate car. I had to steer and shoot things while holding her. She just looked around and probably wondered what on earth was going on.
Buzz Lightyear himself! Paige said she was too scared to go meet him.

At the tea cup ride...




In Minnie's house...


The other ride we went on was Goofy's Barnstormer (Paige's first experience with a roller coaster--she was scared and excited all at the same time, and perfected my mom's scared/excited laugh perfectly the whole time we were on the ride. I think she was really shocked by how fast and twisty turny it was).

We ate a basic dinner at a fast food place. Actually, we are really impressed with the fast food places in Disney. Though not gourmet of course, the food is actually really yummy at these places. After dinner Paige and Daddy went to the Haunted Mansion ride in the dark. She wanted to ride with Daddy this time...her idea. I can't believe she's not scared of it. While they were in there, I wandered the magical lit-up night time streets with Rose trying to get her to go to sleep.

We got to the night time show just in time armed with a strobe light style glow stick. First, there was a projection show on the Cinderella castle. The entire castle was lit up in continuously changing scenes and colours. Hard to explain really. After this was the amazing fireworks show which has to be one of the best you can ever see. These fireworks were huge and really really loud. In the background they had character voices and music from movies. Paige was in awe. Rose was sleeping--after fighting it for about 10 minutes before the show started she finally passed out just as it began. She was way over tired.

Rose in the parking lot before we had to transfer her into the car...

Both girls were completely passed out when we reached the hotel and we carried our little sleeping family back into the room and got them into their beds.

Disney Part 1!: Magic Kingdom

On Tuesday we let Rose sleep in and then we got ready to head off to Magic Kingdom! It was very chilly in the morning, and despite the promise of sun in the forecast, the day started off cloudy. We all had to dress in sweatshirts and bring our fall jackets.

After a very windy and freezing ferry ride we arrived at the Magic Kingdom! There was a parade going on, and all of the sights and sounds made it a great time to get there. Paige was definitely overwhelmed and amazed by all of the Disney characters being there right in front of her. At this point, Rose needed to eat breakfast, so we stopped on main street for muffins and coffee and fed her some cereal. Paige was anxious to get going so Mike tied her over with the purchase of a balloon on the street.

Right away we saw some of the Dreams Come True show at the Cinderella Castle. Paige was ready to get going though so we watched a bit, and just caught more of the show later.

As Paige and I went on the first ride--Dumbo-- daddy and Rose played with the balloon which get left behind here in the shuffle.

Paige was having a blast, but is too short to be seen in the photos!

We were lucky to get a pink elephant as this was her colour of choice.

Disheveled and ready for more! The sun had come out and it was really warm! We all got a bit of a sun burn unfortunately. We forgot to put on sunscreen when the sun came out.

As Paige and Daddy went on the Carousel, I grabbed a fast pass for the Winnie the Pooh ride so we could avoid the line up.

As we waited for our fast pass timeslot for Winnie the Pooh, we had some lunch.

In line for Winnie the Pooh. You have to park strollers outside all of the rides in special stroller park areas. The ride was tame enough that Rose could ride too. We all got to sit in a Honey Pot.

We were running out of battery life in our camera, so we didn't take tons of photos, but we also took in the Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and the Swiss Family treehouse. Because of Rose we need to take turns on the rides, but that is fine. Sometimes she needed a diaper change or food. She also had a nice long nap in her stroller...about an hour while we pushed her around.

Here is our second balloon to replace the lost one. Paige didn't notice all day that it was gone. She was preoccupied with her Ariel doll and new headband. When the new balloon arrived the transition was seamless! She would have noticed eventually, so I'm glad we got a new one!

The sun was beating down by the end of the day. Paige looks like she's sleeping but she's really just clsing her eyes from the sun. We were ready to head back to the hotel for the night before we overdid it and people got cranky. Thank goodness we had Paige's stroller. As I said before it wasn't possible for Paige to walk around. She was never cranky (except when she wanted sun glasses), and she really had fun in the stroller since it was a novelty. Speaking of cranky, Rose only cried once when I "dissappeared" to grab some water for her cereal, and Mike appeared without his glasses on and freaked her out. She was really upset. The rest of the day she loved--I think the sights, the weather, and her cheerios kept her going.

We couldn't feasibly see everything we wanted to in one visit so are going back today (Wednesday) mid afternoon for more rides and to see the fireworks in the evening. The day is really sunny and warm, so a good day to visit the pool in case the other days aren't as nice.

Arriving and getting to Orlando!

Again we were rushed at the airport. We just can't seem to win in this department. We even got there according to my very specifically laid out schedule. Check in was somewhat slow as our self check in didn't work, but then things really got slow at customs when our line was switched to "crew only" right in front of our faces. Poor Mike would have been sipping a Starbucks for an hour at the gate with his Nexxus pass on a normal day. And then to add further insult, Mike was selected at customs as a person to be searched. For whatever reason, he chose a pat-down instead of the new body scan machine. I guess that's a guy thing...maybe he saw that the scanner person was a woman, and the pat-down was a man.

After check in we only had time to visit the washroom and buy a package of kleenex for Paige's extremely runny nose. Then we had to hop on our plane which sat there for a super long time and then had to get de-iced. Eventually we took off for a uneventful flight. We all watched TV, Rose had a nice sleep in my arms, and we ate some early lunch. No turbulence at all either, which was unusual.

Upon arrival in Orlando we took our time getting to baggage claim, and once we got there we literally picked up all 3 bags in a matter of seconds and went to get our rental car.

They had a Lincoln Town car waiting for us as we are "preferred guests" with Avis, but we chose for a downgrade to a much smaller KIA. The trunk barely fit our stuff, but who wants to dirve a massive Town Car? And the ghetto car seats they gave us wouldn't have matched the leather interior...I really appreciate our seats at home now. Rose is swimming in a toddler car seat that looks completely uncomfortable, and not nearly as safe as ours from home. And to install it rear-facing was a pain and took forever.

When we got to our hotel, or so we thought, we realized that the credit card company had booked us in at the wrong hotel! The hotels have almost exactly the same name, both Sheratons, but at different addresses. Mike called the company, and as we were waiting for them to look into it we drove to the hotel we were actually booked at and it was just as nice, so we decided to let it slide and just check in. When AMEX got back to us they appologized, but also noted that the one we wanted was more expensive. We were happy to take the cheaper room. And seriously, we are living in at least 1300 square feet or so of luxury. Two massive bedrooms--a master with whirlpool tub in the room (beside Rosies crib), king bed, tv, and separate vanity, and then Paige's room with bathroom, tv, and 2 double beds. Then we have a huge living/dining/kitchen area, and separate pantry and laundry room. There is also a large screened in porch with full patio table with view of pond. This place isn't even expensive...$150 a night i think--and we save majorly on food as we are cooking meals. The only thing that needs to be done is the showers...they are a bit old. And that's because I'm searching for something to find wrong. This place is awesome. Right now I'm sitting at our breakfast bar with my coffee as Paige is having a snack and a show and Rose is sleeping in her crib. Actually--her crib kind of sucks. Metal bars that she smashes into in the night. We could have chose a playpen, but I think that the crib is probably more clean. We're going to make our own bumper pads tonight with towels. Paige really enjoyed a bath last night with the jets. We asked for a non-slip bath mat and they came with a new one right in the package. If we forgo housecleaning on any day we get 500 starwood points on our account, so we chose to forgo it yesterday. We don't need the room cleaned every day.

After we checked in Mike went grocery shopping and got himself some beer. Then we watched some TV, listened to Paige's Backyardigans CD over and over again, and rested up for our first day at the Magic Kingdom!

If you only have one child...a baby or a preschooler, you have to spend a lot of time entertaining them. Don't get me wrong, I still have to and want to entertain the 2 kids, but they actually entertain each other! This is fantastic. Now that Rose can play and move around, I just plop them down in the living room while I make meals and they play together. No one is whining or pulling themselves up on my legs or slamming their finger in the bottom drawer beside the stove. I try not to take advantage of Paige, but I can often ask her to go and play with Rose if she's getting fussy. Win win situation!

Here's a little clip: