December 2012 Disney World

 

 

We tried to surprise the girls with a trip to Disneyworld. I think Kennedy found out at school that she was going, but she didn’t ruin the surprise for August.  We left early morning on a non-stop flight to Orlando. The girls enjoyed the flight, despite having to stay in their seats.  August and Kennedy enjoyed looking out at the clouds. One cloud Kennedy said looked like a castle in the sky.

 

 

 

 

We rode the Magical Express bus to our resort, Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. Once there, we checked in got our refillable mugs and left our bags at the counter.  Our first stop was late lunch reservations at Tusker House at Epcot Center. When we entered the house, Belle was waiting to taking pictures with the girls. It wasn’t until we were seated that the overwhelming astonishment of the princesses walking around sunk in.  At this time, we as parents were able to view this place through our children’s eyes. Both of us wiped a tear from our eye seeing this excitement in Kennedy and Augusts’ face. After looking back, Trey and I both agreed of all the character dinners we went to our trip this was our favorite. The food and adult beverages were excellent!  The girls   got signatures and photos with the different princesses and did a grand march around the restaurant.  

After lunch we hit up a boat ride that was right by our restaurant. We walked around Epcot then headed back to our hotel to get changed for going to Fort Wilderness Campground to have a Hoedown dinner. We rode the boat from our hotel to the Fort Wilderness.  The girls were able to dance with the characters. They were getting pretty tired so we left before seeing the rest of the show. We were fine with that, the Hoedown was o.k. but would probably save our money if we went again.  

 

Sunday, we headed to the Magic Kingdom.  The girls eyes lit up when seeing the castle for the first time. Still to this day, when they see the castle at the beginning of Disney movies they say…We’ve been there.  The longest wait time for us was about 20 minutes to get into the new opening of FantasyLand Belle’s storytime. Otherwise, we almost walked on to the rides.  Sunday, the crowd level was low so we were almost able to ride all of the rides at the Park.  We did ride Splash Mountain, despite Kennedy not wanting to go on because she didn’t want to get wet. August stood on her tiptoes when the girl was measuring her so we were able to go in. We got drenched, Trey lost his hat, and Kennedy cried for a bit but eventually got over it and asked to return to the ride

 

Periwinkle and the Girls

 

 

One of the first rides we rode was the Jungle Cruise. The cast member doing the cruise must have been pretty impressionable on Kennedy. At one point, he told us all to duck because the pirates were going to shoot at us. Trey and I looked over at Kennedy and she was on the ground in the boat. Trey and I just giggled. Kennedy thought it was pretty funny too.

Aladdin's magical carpet ride, the girls enjoyed waiving and pushing the lever up and down so the carpet would move.

 

We all got a good giggle when the girls drove the race cars. Trey and I had to push the petals but the girls were able to stear.

We had dinner reservations at The Grand Floridian Hotel to have the character dinner with the cast from Cinderella. August had fallen asleep in the stroller and when Trey went to pick her up her fingernail slashed part of his eye. He had to squint in the photos because he thought she had tore his retina. Being a great strong dad, he said he wasn’t going to miss the dinner that he would wait on going to the emergency room until we were done. The girls enjoyed meeting Cinderella and Princes Charming. Neither of them wanted to have their pictures with the stepmom or the evil sisters, but we convinced them that sometimes people just have bad days and they aren’t always mean.

When we got back to the hotel, Trey took a taxi to the emergency room. They shipped his medicines and everything he needed to Disney. Fortunately, he had a severe tear in his eye and it healed up in a couple of days with the help of some eye drop meds.

 

 

The third day in Florida, we went to Animal Kingdom. The girls enjoyed the safari and like the plays of Finding Nemo and The Lion King. We ate lunch at Tusker House so the kids could see Mickey/Minney/Goofy/& Donald in their safari attire. It rained on us a bit so we found this nice little playground that they could play on and in the sand.  We were able to see all of Animal Kingdom in the day. Once back at the hotel, we took the girls for a swim and headed to bed in anticipation for a long next day.

 

 

 

We went back to Magic Kingdom and enjoyed the rides for another day. At the night time, we went to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas. They gave out free cookies and hot cocco/Apple cider.  We were able to watch the Christmas parade and the light show on the castle. The girls enjoyed the fireworks display at the end.  We went to one of the halls where the girls were able to dance with Woody and Jesse.  When the girls had their picture with Tiana from the Princess and the Frog, they thought it as so funny because she told August(who was dressed up like Rapunzel), if she could find her good friend Rapunzel and see if she could get her frying pan back so she could do some more cooking.  The girls kept saying they needed to find Rapunzel to get that frying pan back.

During one of the days that we went back to the hotel for a nap, Kennedy and I sat out on the balcony while Trey and August slept. She proceeded to write Gus a letter on how he needed to come visit her at Disneyworld.

One of our favorite rides, the Tea Cup. As much as I don't like the tea cup because I get nausious, the whole family was laughing unstoppable as we would turn and fall onto one another.

 

 

Our last day in Florida, we decided to park hop. Trey and I really enjoyed the food at Epcot, but the girls also wanted to go on some more rides at the Magic Kingdom. We hit Epcot in the morning. We rode several rides at Epcot. The girls really like the Nemo and Friends ride/aquarium.  The different worlds at Epcot are fabulous.  The girls enjoyed playing some drums in one of the lands. We grabbed a beer in Germany and ate some delicious bratwurst and apple strudel.  After lunch, we rode the tram over to Magic Kingdom to wrap up our trip.

Our final day at Magic Kingdom was just that, Magical.  The last ride we rode numerous times was the a little roller coaster. Trey and I didn’t think it would go very fast, but it did. We both had our hands raised high and the next thing you know we were being whipped around. The girls and us couldn’t stop laughing.  Both of them embraced the fast paced rollercoaster and begged for more. So we would ride it, get off it and go again. Kennedy and August both said they had to hold on to our shirts to keep us from flying out.  Laughter and excitement is how we wrapped up our trip.

Inside the Magic Kingdom was a quote from Walt Disney that said something like this: When people come to Disney I want them to forget about the outside world. Well, Walt, you did just that for the Dodson Family.  I couldn’t help but be sad leaving because I didn’t want to go back to reality. I enjoyed the reality that we were in. Where the girls were called princesses all day and we were a family making memories together.  May their always be magic in our lives.

So long Disneyworld! Thanks for the wonderful memories......