You can see the first part of our day here!
The lunch break was just what we needed! When I walked out of the bathroom from pumping it was raining. Zach said it had started right when I got into the bathroom for my pump session. We lucked out that we’d already been sitting at a tabled in a covered area so we didn’t have to worry about getting soaked.
Prior to the trip I’d been watching the weather a ton and was pretty confident that we’d be getting some rain. I’m SO thankful it wasn’t a bad downpour and that it was so short lived. It couldn’t have happened at a better time and I think it helped reset the mood and everyone was just ready for some FUN for the rest of our day!
I pack a LOT of rain gear when we visit the parks. I had an umbrella for myself as well as ponchos for everyone and a rain jacket for the kids. When Kye was little he hated ponchos so I like to bring a wind breaker type jacket with a hood along with us just in case the poncho is an issue. This time I bought the kids “cool” ponchos from Amazon (this is Kye’s Lightning McQueen Rain Slicker
and Britt’s Minnie Mouse Rain Slicker
) and they LOVED them. They are a really good quality rain jacket with the material of a poncho. They were so excited to get to wear them 🙂
Once we finished eating we went to It’s A Small World. It was a short sprint from our covered area and really none of us got wet! The line was probably a little bit longer due to the weather but it still wasn’t bad at all. We talked a lot about the money people had thrown into the water. Kye was ALL about that money! He couldn’t believe how much change was everywhere. Britt’s mood was like she was a totally different child than had been with us that morning. She was silly and sweet and just as happy as could be. I told Zach it really was “the happiest cruise that ever sailed” 🙂
The kids both wanted to bring a friend along to the parks that day which I’m fine with. I’m okay with ONE thing but it is a bit of a hassle to keep up with them. It’s worth the hassle though because it helps while waiting in line and it’s honestly just really cute. Britt RANDOMLY decided to bring Tinkerbelle. Why? Who knows. I assumed she’d want to bring her Donald but she said she didn’t want to and wanted to bring Tink. I actually suggested that they could each bring a friend because I was wanting her to have Donald there with her for the day. I knew we’d be meeting him and I thought it’d be cute! This girl just reads my mind then chooses the opposite haha! I’m not a Tinkerbelle fan (I mean have you watched Peter Pan? She’s a jealous brat!) but she won me over by the end of the day. Britt was adorable with her! During It’s A Small World Britt kept showing her all the things on the ride. She also got filthy by the end of the day so I was glad Donald was safe and clean in the hotel room!
We headed over to the Country Bears Jamboree which is one we all just love! It was the BEST crowd we’ve ever had during that show. Everyone was so into it and it was hilarious. I think Zach and I appreciate it more than the kids…and I think Southerns especially appreciate it 😉
We had fast passes for Jungle Cruise because the last time we visited the park Jungle Cruise had a LONG wait time DUE to all the fast passes. That’s the biggest thing I’ve noticed with the new fast pass plus system. It seems like all the rides that have fast pass options have much longer wait times than they normally do. You get “punished” by not having a fast pass.
Of the three fast passes we selected (Belle, Peter Pan and Jungle Cruise) Jungle Cruise was the only one we actually needed to use. I didn’t know it at the time but have since learned the smartest strategy is to book all three of your fast passes for as early in the day as you can. Once you use all three then you’re able to schedule more! But you have to use ALL three first. When we did Peter Pan we didn’t use the fast pass but they also didn’t scan our bracelets so the system didn’t realize it and we weren’t able to select more rides. I was able to trade it in for other experiences…which ended up kinda not working out in our favor. But it was a good lesson learned and I now feel like I have a VERY good understanding of the fast pass + system, how it works, and how to utilize My Disney Experience.
Even though we didn’t stay on property we all have Magic Bands as well. Zach and I got ours when we stayed on property for my birthday trip. Did you know you can reuse the same bands over and over? I bought the kids each a band and am so glad I did! I was able to load all of our tickets on the bands and we were good to go! It made getting in the park easier, fast passes way easier, and even our reservations were easier to check in! Plus they were all linked to the app on my phone and I was able to update and change things as I needed to. One thing I will remember for next time is that Disney has FREE WIFI for park guests! It’s the network “Disney-Guest.”
The Jungle Cruise is a favorite of ours. I was disappointed that it was still set up as the “Jingle Cruise” from Christmas. I just do NOT understand why? The script was back to the old one but the Christmas items were still on the set. I didn’t like it as it just seemed so un-Disney like to be shabby like that!
After Jungle Cruise the boys went to ride Big Thunder Mountain. I felt SO bad that Splash was closed AGAIN. Poor Kye hasn’t gotten to ride his FAVORITE ride since Sept 2013! Now that Kye does love all the “big kid” stuff we will have to have a better system down for splitting up. I felt like Britt and I were wasting time waiting around on them. It’s hard b/c we love so many rides together as a family and I didn’t want to do anything without Kye but at the same time it’s not fair for Britt and I just to be hanging around waiting on them. Maybe we will start doing character meetings? I think before our next trip I will talk to Kye and decide if there are some rides he’s okay with missing out on or what experiences he’d be okay skipping.
My big plans for while they did Thunder Mountain was to take Britt to one of my favorites: The Enchanted Tiki Room. We sing the song all the time (my brother and I used to sing it constantly as kids and whenever I sing it I think of him!) so she was familiar with it and excited to get to do something special with just Mommy. She’d never done it before and it’s one we usually skip because Zach hates it. So this is one thing that works out GREAT for when they do the mountain rides! Bring on some Tiki Room Time! Britt really enjoyed it but I honestly think she enjoyed it just being us and having that special one-on-one time more than she liked the actual show (let’s be real….it’s not the coolest thing around!).
After Tiki Room we used the potty and then were kinda stuck wondering what to do next. I debated getting in line to meet Jasmine and Aladdin but I didn’t want to wait and then the boys show up and have to get out of line or make them wait for something I didn’t really care about doing. That’s what I mean about having to get a better system down! Next time we’ll have a game plan of what exactly Britt and I will do!
It ended up working out great though. I decided to just go ahead and get in line for the magic carpets. I figured Britt and I could ride solo and Kye may not care about riding them or maybe they’d make it back in time to join us and not have to wait in line. We ended up literally boarding the ride when they walked up! Zach put Kye over the gate and he hoped on with us and it was PERFECT! Britt and I rode in the back and Kye “drove” us up front.
Magic carpets is a ride just like Dumbo. It’s a total cheesy kid ride. It’s “lame” but oh my gosh we have so much fun on it. There is a camel that spits at you and Kye thinks it’s SO funny to try to get me wet! We laugh and laugh and it’s always a ride I leave the park having fond memories of!
Can’t you tell he LOVES it? This is my all-time favorite Disney picture ever!
Zach and I first had the orange float on Kye’s first trip to Disney and it started a tradition of getting one whenever we visit Magic Kingdom. It worked out where we didn’t get one on Britt’s first visit last year. The day we planned to do it it was super cold and raining and we opted for ice cream on Main Street instead. This time? We were getting our floats! It’s the only time my kids have EVER had any type of soda! We got two of them and some water cups and just all shared. It’s a great spot to sit and relax and it was a great time for a treat!
My favorite travel partner 🙂
Up next it was time for Pirates! I knew there was a good chance Britt would freak. Originally I wasn’t worried about it at all but after the morning we’d had I didn’t know what to expect. I learned on this day that Britt is better when you don’t prepare her. Kye does well with preparation. Explain what’s going to happen. Lay it all out for him. Then he does fine! Britt? She’s better off just not knowing and rolling with it. I was prepping her for things thinking it’d help her, since I’m used to Kye and how he responds best to new things. But instead it freaked her out about stuff more. So when it came to Pirates I didn’t do any prep at all! We all acted like pirates and sang the pirate song and just hopped on the ride! For Kye I always told him about the dark drop and he never had an issue with it…for Britt I just didn’t say anything and then it was over and she was fine. She did pretty well the whole ride. I wouldn’t say she was like in LOVE with it but she wasn’t mega terrified either. She has said she wants to ride it again and I think Kye having a pirate birthday party this year will help too!
Pirate Poses!
We headed over to tomorrow land and did Monsters Laugh Factory. Another favorite of ours! Kye was SO CUTE this time. He is old enough now where he likes to tell jokes so he understood the content of the show better. He also took it very seriously when they said we needed to laugh a lot to fill the jar for energy…he laughed SO LOUD. It was seriously precious!
We almost skipped doing the speedway because it’s not one that Zach and I really love or anything. But I’m SO glad we didn’t skip it. It ended up being Britt’s FAVORITE ride of the day. I know, RANDOM. She LOVED it!!!
We rode it once and the boys decided to go ride Space Mountain (Mommy freak out moment: my BABY boy riding SPACE MOUNTAIN?!?! With NO prep at ALL?!?!?) so Britt and I rode the Speedway for another time. We were SUPER silly and kept yelling and saying “SUPPPPER FASSST” it was so fun! This may be one that we do and have Kye skip it if he wants to do Space Mountain? I’d love to know how other parents handle that situation with kids who want to ride different things???
We had a looooooong wait on the boys. I was hurting b/c I needed to pump SUPER bad. I took Britt over to The Incredibles Dance Party thinking it’d be a fun way to wait (and it was right beside Space Mountain) but she wasn’t interested at all. I think the size of the characters intimidated her. There really just wasn’t anything else for us to do. We ended up walking around looking at all the flowers. Britt was happy as could be with this activity! She smelled the flowers and then would move to another section to look at them. We had the goal of seeing allll the flowers and we achieved the goal and still had a wait for the boys!
When Zach mentioned Space Mountain I wasn’t really on board. I have always prepared Kye for rides in advance by showing You Tube videos. I’ve never ridden Space myself but know it’s “the coolest” ride at the park for adults. Which means I was nervous for my 5 year old to ride it! He is officially tall enough to do it though and Zach explained to him what it was all about (in the dark and fast) and he was down for it. They had a much longer wait than the signs were posted as it being (like they waited 40 minutes) but thankfully Kye did like it! I love that he and Zach have so many rides together that they enjoy…I think it helps Zach to like Disney even more!
Such a good daddy…he held onto him the whole ride 🙂
By the time the boys got done I was over an hour late on my pumping! I ran to the bathroom and Zach took the kids on the People Mover. Which I WILL be doing next time with Britt if the guys ride Space. I’ve never done it before and Zach said it was a nice little ride! I’ve heard it’s great for a break and I always am down for some sitting with my foot issues 🙂 I was so proud when I went through pics and saw that Zach had taken some of the kids for me while I was pumping! Pro Dad 🙂
We have kind of done ourselves in when it comes to snacks at Disney now. Because we fell in LOVE with the pretzels in Tomorrowland so now we have two must have snacks! I was crunk for my cream cheese pretzel! The cast member hooked Zach up so we had three pretzels which meant I didn’t have to share mine haha!
Buzz Lightyear had a crazy long wait time that day. We realized once we were on it that the issue was both related to the ride (it had quite a few glitches) and also to the fast pass + system. The cast member monitoring the fast passes was letting a TON of people through which made the line take WAY longer. I think they need a better system for how many fast pass + people to let through at a given time? We kept watching the wait time from our seats while eating our snack and decided to just go ahead and get in it because the next available fast pass time wasn’t until 45 minutes later and since Buzz was our last ride of the day we’d just be waiting around for it anyway!
Playing “Buzz Lightyear” with their friends
Buzz is for sure a top ride for our family. It’s just so fun and part of the fun is the awesome photo taking opportunity on the ride ha!
We defeated Zurg and saved the day!
(Britt actually did very well on this one and wasn’t scared! Whew!)
Kye was having an awesome day. He got to ride two new rides (Mine Train and Space Mountain) and was super pumped about everything. I felt like Britt hadn’t really gotten to do something special. We met Donald Duck for her but she didn’t even enjoy it. Prior to this day none of us were big Tinkerbelle fans. Britt had the one small plush but that’s it and she just randomly chose Tink as her friend for the day. Tink was part of our family that day. She carried her all day long (Kye’s friend, Stitch, lived in my book bag most of the time) and showed her everything we did. I checked the wait times throughout the day and actually traded out our Peter Pan fast pass for a Tinkerbelle meet and greet during the time when I thought we’d be leaving the park. Britt and I schemed a little and she sweeeeeetly asked Daddy about meeting Tinkerbelle 😉 It ended up being only a 5 minute wait and was a REALLY neat experience! Kye even loved it!!! I think the Tinkerbelle meeting was the highlight of the day! I’m SO glad we did it and it was such a special moment for Britt! She really, really loves meeting characters so my #1 priority next visit is Elsa and Anna 🙂
With no wait it meant Tink was also in no hurry! She had a LONG conversation with Kye and Britt. It was SO adorable! I didn’t hear most of what they talked about but Kye said it was about Britt’s Tink and about Tink’s sister from one of the Tinkerbelle movies. Kye was very interested in all the surroundings and pointed out several things from the movies. I guess he’s a Tinkerbelle scholar 😉
After we met Tinkerbelle we left the park. It was about 6:00 and we hopped over to Epcot for the evening. We got there and rode Nemo then got dinner at the Electric Umbrella. It’s not the most amazing food, but it’s a great location. They recently changed up their menu but they do still have chicken fingers and fries…just ask! While we waited for Zach to come back with the food the kids were in a super silly mood. By then it was their bedtime. They’d miss naps and hadn’t even had dinner yet (who says I never go with the flow?!?!). I brought their ears from Halloween so we put them on and made up jokes to trick Daddy when he got back!
I LOVE to see her HAPPY!
Just Chillin’
After I finished my dinner I ran over to the large store to get something for Tess and to get an ornament for our tree. I got a Tinkerbelle one which I thought was a fitting representation for our visit! Once I got back we went to Spaceship Earth. Nemo and Spaceship Earth are our favorites at Epcot. I’d like to take the kids (or at least Britt ha!) to meet characters in world showcase. I think they’d love to meet Mary Poppins and Mulan! When we got on the ride it stopped going. We were still sitting in the entrance of the ride so we kinda got a “behind the scenes” look at how the cast members handled the situation. Someone had stepped out of their cart during the ride. I mean who does that?!?! So dumb. And the cast members were basically freaking out haha. It took us quite awhile to get going again and we debated just getting out but the kids were fine and it got back rolling!
Me and Britt shared a face 😉
Illuminations is the best fireworks show for sure! Zach is the king at finding great spots to sit and we had awesome seats for the show. It was 9:00 when the show started and I busted out the glow toys to keep the kids going 🙂
The kids both loved it! Britt was, not surprisingly anymore, a little scared at first but was happy in her daddy’s arms!
When the show ended the kids got in the stroller and we headed back. I couldn’t BELIEVE it but when we got to the monorail station KYE was DEAD asleep!!!
Tell me she’s not super exhausted! We kept telling her to go to sleep but she kept trying to resist it!
Kye stayed asleep in the stroller the entire time. THEN stayed asleep when he was transferred to the car seat. THEN stayed asleep when we got back to the room. Zach stripped him down and had him go potty and he was still asleep. The next morning he said “we left our car at Disney World!” He had ZERO memory of getting from the fireworks to his bed! I’d say that was a successful day!!!
She fought it and fought it but she was also asleep in her car seat by the time we reached the hotel!
We went straight home first thing the next morning and I was SO ready to see my littlest girl! I LOVE Disney and I have ZERO regrets about leaving the baby at home…but it just isn’t the same when my whole family isn’t together. A piece of my heart was missing and it made me start counting down the days until her first visit!
If you’re in the parks and needing a gift for an infant they have the CUTEST It’s A Small World touch and feel books…and they are only $7.99 which is a steal by Disney standards!
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