On the morning of New Year's, we got the kids up early and headed to Orlando to meet Oma and Papa for our adventure in Disneyworld. The drive up was a bit rough, as we went through HUGE rainstorms - so we were all happy to arrive at the hotel and greet Oma and Papa with big, warm hugs. Not wanting to miss a step, we dropped our cars off, and took a taxi over to the Magic Kingdom to start our adventure.
While the weather didn't exactly cooperate (it was pouring rain), we had a blast... we started the day with a monorail to the park, which the kids loved. When we entered, the kids were wowed by the castle ("Sleeping Beauty's Castle), which Kate immediately wanted to move into. Everyone was hungry, so we decided to purchase rain parkas (a must!) and then go on one ride before grabbing lunch. We picked the Snow White ride, naively thinking that would be a good fit with both kids. I should have looked twice at the real name of the ride - "Snow White's Scary Adventures." Between the darkness and the witch jumping out, Kate was screaming through most of the ride.. not a great choice by me. At least Jack loved it.
We grabbed a delicious lunch next door. Overall, we were really impressed with the food quality (and healthy options) at the parks, which was not what we remembered. It was perfect for the kids - and for us. After lunch, we quickly redeemed ourselves in Kate's eyes by going on, "Its a Small World," which (not surprisingly) became her favorite ride of the entire trip. We all loved seeing the many countries and the beautiful displays.
Next, we headed over to Adventureland, where the hits were the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse (of course!), the Pirates of the Caribbean (just the boys went on this one - we rarely make the same mistakes twice), and Aladdin's Magic Carpet (Kate's other favorite ride). Fortunately, Oma was kind enough to take Kate on Aladdin's ride several times - a savior for me, as I don't do really well on spinning rides. In between rides, we saw Jasmin and Aladdin - and Kate got to have her picture taken with them. She was speechless!
After Adventureland, we stopped to watch the parade, which was probably our favorite event of the day. The kids got to see all their favorite characters, and Kate was nearly in tears, waving to the princesses (and having them wave back!). Because it was still Christmastime in the park, the parade was extra special, and we all really enjoyed it.
After the parade, we did a short stop in Tomorrowland. But since most of the wait times were quite long, we opted for a quick ride (Lilo and Stitch) before heading back to the hotel. Mistake #2 - turns out Lilo and Stitch was also in the dark - and also quite scary for little kids. While Jack loved it, Kate was in tears... and buckled into her seat, so I couldn't get her out to put her on my lap. I've decided instead of height restrictions they should have "scaredy cat restrictions" to measure the fright index of these rides.
The gang was sufficiently wiped out by then... so we took the taxi back to our hotel, where the kids enjoyed getting into their PJ's and exploring our great hotel room. Oma and Papa had rented a great space, with 3 bedrooms and a shared living room, kitchen and dining room. It worked out perfectly for our group. We fed the kids pasta, and then ordered Chinese takeout for the adults. And everyone was happy to be in warm, dry clothes, relaxing after a fun, busy day.
No comments:
Post a Comment