The kids had a late night at the Chip and Dale Sing-A-Long but they also had to get up and rolling for a FULL day of fun the next morning! We stayed in a two bedroom timeshare and we were a little nervous about the sleeping situation but it went REALLY well. Mrs. Charlotte and both kids shared a room. Which I know sounds crazy but Kye had a bed, Mrs. Charlotte had a bed, and Britt slept in the closet on a toddler air mattress. They were so tired there were no issues at all and since it was a quick trip we didn’t have any naps to be concerned with either!
I did a really awesome job (yes, tooting my own horn ha!) at sticking to our budget for the holidays. So well that I had money left over in the budget and talked to Zach about doing something FUN with it! One of the things we did was buy each of our kids a $50 gift card (which was actually cheaper than $50 b/c DEALZ) to spend on our trip. We’ve never done anything like this before and I was especially excited about it. We gave Britt her card for her birthday and Kye has been NON-STOP mentioning the card ever since! He said all he wanted for his birthday was a “credit card” like Britt had haha!
Since our trip was before Kye’s actual birthday we decided to surprise him on the trip with an early birthday present. I also bought each of the kids their own wallet (you can see the one we got Kye here!). They have been saving their money for the Disney trip so they could keep both their money and their gift cards in their own wallet!
Whenever we go to Disney I always bring along Disney totes and each morning of our trip we put a little gift in the bag for each child. Since we had our big shopping day that day we put the wallets in the bag along with their gift cards. I was SO excited to see Kye’s reaction that I took this video of it…and of course Britt had more excitement about the gift card that she already owned than Kye did about his hahaha!
Originally we were supposed to be spending our entire day at Magic Kingdom. But with the bad weather predictions we switched our days. Y’all. We got word the night prior that school had been canceled for the kids back home b/c of the weather!!! We FOR SURE made the right call! And it really couldn’t have gone more perfectly. I was able to get us an early morning breakfast reservation at Ohana. We’ve never eaten there and were SUPER excited.
The kids didn’t know about it and it was fun being sneaky about the surprise. Even when Kye and Britt saw their Stitch shirts they still didn’t know b/c they never even knew that Stitch was at a character meal 🙂
I thought it’d be fun for us all to wear Hawaiian attire to the breakfast since it’s at the Polynesian and is Hawaiian themed. I thought I had several Hawaiian shirts but none fit me and I was lucky to find one that I could make work! Luckily Zach had one already that worked and we bought Mrs. Charlotte one as a gift 🙂
When it came to the kids I thought it’d be fun to have Stitch outfits. Easier said than done though! I found Kye’s shirt on Amazon and got Britt’s off Ebay. It’s from China so I was pretty nervous about it but when it arrived it was ADORABLE! I also found her a matching bow from Hot Topic (SO random but they have THE cutest Disney stuff! Kye went with me to pick it up and I kept telling him to guard his eyes and his heart b/c some of their merchandise is not appropriate).
We were the earliest reservation time of the day and had a little wait for the restaurant to get moving. We didn’t mind because it meant a chance to roam around and hunt for hidden Mickeys 🙂
We decided the way they tied the knots on this lantern were for sure intentional to look like Mickey right?!?!
We have done Chef Mickey’s and Cape May for birthdays in the past. I like that Chef Mickey’s SINGS and does like a celebration for birthdays. Cape May and Ohana are similar in the way they celebrate. Kye was presented with a special card filled with the signatures of the characters he’d be meeting that morning. No singing or anything but they did bring a cupcake later in the meal. I personally like the energy of the Chef Mickey’s celebration but the keepsake of the card is SO COOL and Kye LOVED it!
We had a cool view of the castle!
Unlike Chef Mickey’s and Cape May, Ohana is not buffet. Instead it’s all you can eat family style. I think a LOT of people don’t realize you can ask for more helpings! They brought us some delicious rolls that Britt gobbled up before anyone could get any ha! Then they brought out a huge platter with bacon, sausage, eggs, fries, biscuits, Stitch waffles and Mickey waffles as well as a platter with fruit. Zach is a buffet fan b/c of all the options but we all agreed we LOVED the food at Ohana. Those fries were LEGIT!
The one negative I found with Ohana was the photo pass photographer who took photos of the interaction with Stitch. I realize some people probably love this because they purchase Memory Maker and therefore want the cast members to take a ton of pictures of them! But I don’t buy photo packages (I’ve never looked on our account and seen any photos that were better than the ones I captured myself!) and therefore I’d rather have not had the photographer there. I think it takes away from the interaction for the kids when they have two people taking pictures and telling them to look at them ya know? But they only had a photographer for Stitch and not all of the characters!
Stitch was so silly and was doing the hula around the room and snuck up on us!
Kye wanted to thank him for the card 🙂
I did take advantage of the photographer being there and asked him to use my camera for a group shot ha!
I’m not a HUGE fan of the movie Lilo and Stitch. The storyline isn’t that great to me but I do LOVE that it’s based in Hawaii (I truly believe my soul belongs in Hawaii ha!) and that all of the music is Elvis. Meeting Lilo was great! She was super sweet and I think she was my personal favorite of the morning. I’ve seen people wear her pattern in their clothes for their meal there which I think is adorable!
The kids knew about the Stitch meeting but Mickey was a surprise and they were THRILLED 🙂
I personally loved that Mickey came through the large center aisle which gave us a LOT more space to interact with him! He took his time and really visited with the kids and it was great!
Cupcake for breakfast? Only when it’s your birthday celebration at Disney!
Pluto was a bit of an odd character choice in my opinion. I honestly didn’t even know he was going to be there. I thought it was just Lilo, Stitch and Mickey. I guess because Goofy, Donald and Minnie are at Cape May they wanted to give poor Pluto somewhere to go? And he is Mickey’s dog and all so it makes sense for them to visit Hawaii together.
We always get a pic of Zach and Goofy b/c Goofy ALWAYS points out Zach’s height. Finally Zach is taller than a Disney Dog 😉
While they didn’t do a legit celebration for birthdays…I LOVED the parade they had the kids participate in. It was ADORABLE. Very, very similar to the one Britt got to be part of on our girl’s trip. The kids were given instruments and they got to dance around the restaurant with the characters! It lasted for a full song (Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride, of course) and it was fabulous! Mrs. Charlotte was a little nervous about us letting the kids go because they did go around the entire restaurant and part of the time they weren’t in our line of vision. If you have little little ones I’d plan to join in the parade with them! If we didn’t have Kye with Britt one of us would have gone along 🙂 I video taped the part where the kids passed our table and you can watch it here!
Perfect way to start the day!!!
A cast member even surprised Kye with some special stickers 🙂 He felt really special and it was just that extra touch! Our server cousin was awesome too!
Our family really enjoys character meals. It’s a great opportunity to meet characters without having to stand in line. While they aren’t cheap by any means, we find it well worth it! We always like the food and always have so much fun! We were VERY impressed by Ohana. Zach especially enjoyed all the food and we left very happy and VERY full!!!
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