Disney World

Where do I begin???  Our itinerary? Our hotel?  The memories?  Recommendations? Guess I'll start from the beginning:

Mati Claire and Mattox's first plane trip! Direct flight on Southwest is awesome! 1 1/2 hr flight! Yes, mattox will kill me one day for forcing him to ride around in a pink stroller.  The blue one was just too big for this trip.  People ask about their clothes - so I'll comment after each outfit pic. Also, either my computer or Blogger is being slow so I'm only posting my absolute favorite pics (out of a million). 

(clothes by Kelly's Kids)

Arrived Monday afternoon too late to go to any park.  We stayed at the Treehouse Villas of Saratoga Springs Resort.  Loved.  BUT would not stay there again.  They failed to mention when I booked it, that you had to catch TWO buses...which can take up to an hour or more altogether.  I felt like we spent more time on buses than we probably should have (had we stayed somewhere else).  But we had total privacy, no neighbors above or below or beside us.  No one to hear Mattox screaming because he had to sleep in a pack-n-play.  2 steps away from the bus stop.  Full size fridge, washer/dryer, dishwasher, you name it.  So totally worth it.

Had dinner at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary.  Found out early that Mattox was not a fan of the celebrities.  ha! bless his heart.  He liked looking at them from a distance...

Tuesday at Magic Kingdom!!!  I would highly recommend making a breakfast reservation at 9:00 (or anytime before 9:15) because they let you into the park EARLY! So while the herds of people are standing at the gate - you get to walk through a gate for special people.  While you are walking to your restaurant, you get to take pictures with NO ONE else around you! Except maybe the 3 other people who also have reservations.  So we got pics of us and the castle with no crowd.  Worth it!  Course MC was overwhelmed.... but loved it. Such a girly girl.  

Cinderella's Royal Castle Character Breakfast.  Princess heaven.  I think we probably could have gone home after this meeting.  She was done.  She met Cinderella and we were done.   Food was ok. 

(Mattox's shortall ordered from: Trendi Tots Boutique then click on Disney tab on left.  MC's dress from Orient Expressed)

Bibbity Bobbity Boutique.  I'm 50/50 on this.  MC got to pick out which hairstyle she wanted, which crown, makeup, face stickers, nail polish, etc... so I'm happy that she's happy.  Personally, I didn't like this look on her and paid $$ for it, but she thought she looked like a princess.  I loved that she loved it. She had the first major meltdown during this.  ha! the first of many to come!

(Bibbity Bobbity Boutique)

      

     

Wednesday at Animal Kingdom!!!  Nobody in my family had ever been here before.  So it was new to all of us.  Again, 9:00 breakfasts are soooo worth it! Got through the gate around 8:30 and spent time checking everything out.  We were a little skeptical --- if you were judging a book by its cover.  But our absolute FAVORITE character meal was Donald's Safari at the Tusker House.  Best food the whole week.  And great variety.   Rode the safari which was a hit with my kids.  Lion King show was awesome! Played around there for most of the day.

(outfits also by Trendi Tots Boutique)

(Animal Kingdom)

                                       

We knew it was going to rain later in the week so we tried to push our "must-do's".  Matt changed up my schedule I had planned.  So we left Animal Kingdom and went to Hollywood Studios for the rest of the day.

Let me tell you that Mattox was asleep the whole trip until we got to TOY STORY mania.  man oh man did he come alive when he saw Woody and Buzz!  For him, it doesn't get any better than that! 

(never seen mattox so happy in his entire life)

Thursday was our day off! sort of.  When we booked this trip a year ago, Matt wanted a day off from everything so it felt more like a relaxing vacation.  In other words he wanted to play golf = get away from the kids.  So we slept late.  Mom and I took them back to Magic Kingdom while the boys played golf.  Both kids were exhausted by this point and we struggled all day.  I caught some upper respiratory bug so I wasn't feeling well (fever, chills, aches, sinus drainage, sore throat).  We were all tired but pressed on!

(again... Trendi Tots Boutique.  love.)

Friday was our last day and it rained! No worries - just wore ponchos.  Made it a little harder to do stuff.  Had breakfast at the Crystal Palace at Magic Kingdom.  Then we made our way to Epcot for dinner at the Princess Storybook Dinner at Ackershus (sp?) at Norway.  Only place I would not recommend.  The food was not that good.  But again, MC loved the princesses.  My love is her love.  [Anyone hearing that Whitney Houston song playing in your head now? ha.]

Can't really see their outfits here but gotta love some TrendiTots.

"Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween"... hmmm.... overall I would NOT recommend this to anyone with small children.  Sorry.  Hope I didn't disappoint anyone.  Maybe we got there too late after dinner, but this was not a hit with my kids AT ALL.  They hated every minute of it.  Very cool for adults and older kids; but it was scary for small children.  The castle was lit up in scary colors and had smoke coming from every turret.  Scary music playing overhead.  There was a parade of villains (Ursula, Jafar, Scar, the hyenas, Evil Queen, Stepmother/sisters, etc...)  And every person there was dressed pretty scary/ugly.  There were some funny and cool costumes, but of course my kids only saw the scary ones.  We decided to go hunt down the candy..  Exactly! We had to HUNT for the candy.  Practically beg for it.  Only found 3 places passing out candy in the entire Magic Kingdom! While we were hunting, we went into the Saloon in Frontierland.  To our surprise, Woody and Jessie were dancing inside.  We got to dance with them - very cool.  And it was not crowded at all.  That was the best part of the night.  We moved on and thought they would enjoy the fireworks - WRONG again! Fireworks scare the mess out of little kids.  Thought it was just my kids - but every kid around us was screaming and crying!!!!  Mattox kept his head buried in his stroller.  We paid almost $70/each for those tickets and were only there 1 hour.  And Mati Claire's vision of Cinderella's Castle is seriously disturbed now.  She kept asking what was wrong with Cinderella's castle? was it on fire? was someone attacking it? was Cinderella ok?...

Here is my absolute FAVORITE picture of the whole week though.  Considering how bad he cried when he saw most of the characters, this is priceless.  He finally warmed up to them on the LAST day at breakfast:

(butterfly kisses make me want to cry)

And we left Saturday morning.  So sad.  There are hundreds of more pics with every ride and every character that each have a different story - but these are my faves.  Mati Claire did NOT want to go home.  I'm glad to be home.  Can't wait to take them again (when they are much older)!  and when everyone is potty-trained. ;)