The Ringels: ORLANDO DAY 1&2

Since this is my third trip to Orlando (2nd with my kiddos), there are things that I wanted to do this trip that we didn't get to do last trip. At the end of this trip, there were things I wish we could have done that we did last trip. In reality there is seriously no way to see and do everything you want to do in just one trip. When I research going to Disney World, I would come across these blogs that talked about buying 10 day passes and I thought they were crazy but now I realize that you really need that much time to take it all in (if you can afford it...mentally and physically). You just might be crazy after you were there for 10 days but I think I can handle it...maybe!

For some reason, this tripped seemed a little more stressful than the last one. Maybe it was the extra child or the rain or the I'm set in my ways and everything unfamiliar stresses me out. It could also be that I forgot about all the stuff that stressed me out on the first trip. No matter how stressful or how uncooperative the weather was with our vacation, we still had so much fun. Just as much fun as our first and then some! And I say, now that I'm totally familiar with everything Disney and Universal...let's go back next year...or when we can save about $5,000 for another trip!

We flew in on a Saturday night which was a huge mistake because we're all excited about getting to Orlando and by the time we got to the hotel, it was so late that the pool wasn't even open...that I would have definitely done differently. Before we left for our trip, we were so excited that we even painted our toenails Disney. It was a toss up between Harry Potter and Disney but there just wasn't many Harry Potter ideas out there so we went Disney!

LOGAN

TYLER (alien's from toy story)

We did get up bright and early the next day and headed to Magic Kingdom! These are our, "Mom made us get up too early faces." I say, "suck it up, we're at Disney World!" Can you tell I'm a little excited!

I was a little shocked to see so many people there but later I found out from a local that the spring had been unusually cold so any nice day will be filled with lots of people with cabin fever. Sounds familiar however, I'm not sure I would call this particular day, "A Nice Day". Yes, the weather was nice but it poured down rain for a very long time. That didn't stop us and we got about halfway through the park before it started raining.

Our very first stop was The Laugh Floor with Monster's Inc (or Monsters Inkwink as Zakk calls it) and then we met Buzz. This was on the top of Zakk's "must see" list!

Then we blasted some aliens on Buzz Lightyear's Spaceranger Spin...

This was a picture I found of the ride online just to give you an idea of how cool it was. Everything was neon and lit-up with black lights and we each had our own gun and we spun around and defeated The Evil Emperor Zurg!

After this we spent most of our morning in Tomorrowland and rode,

Space Mountain...

the Carousel of Progress...

...The Transit Authority's People Mover and after that we had, "It's a great big beautiful tomorrow" in our head the rest of the day.

Then we headed to Fantasyland which has been majorly updated since we were there in 2008. They added The Little Mermaid ride and the Beast's Castle which is a restaurant. And we saw Ariel again...

They took out Mickey & Minnie's house but the area where it was is like a big circus with tents and lots of fun new stuff. Here we visited an old favorite, "Goofy's Barnstormer". Now that I think about it, this was the ride on our trip in 2008 where we stood in line long enough for me to call Tyler's doctor, leave a message for the nurse and have her call me back to see if there was anything he could send her for her earache. So I guess the lines were a lot shorter than I remember!

We also rode the Walt Disney World Railroad around the Magic Kingdom because Zakk and his train obsession wouldn't let us leave with doing it!

In the Big Top Circus Tent, we met Minnie, Daisey, Donald & Goofy! I have to say that the character greetings are a little less old fashioned, meaning, you don't have to chase down your favorite character to get their autograph. These days, you have to stand in line and it's a whole lot more organized and efficient but it doesn't make it any less magical! I like it better this way. At least you can't run up to a character for his autograph and trip him so he falls down and not only will you be sad that you just made this huge guy fall over but it broke your autograph pen in the process...and in the confusion, he didn't even finish signing your autograph book. In the true story, it wasn't really me that tripped him but it was me that was in the process of getting his autograph and had my pen broken!

After we got our autographs and walked out of the room a man came up to Tyler and handed her this plate and walked away but instructed her to not let it fall!

After about an hour of light sprinkles...THIS was about the time it started to pour! We were caught between the Beast's Castle and Ariel's Grotto with no raincoats or umbrellas so into the store we go to down $30 on Disney Ponchos and we run for cover and finally found some by Belle's Storytime.

These next two pictures are my favorite. We were stuck under an overhang and we were now wet and cold and there Disney World was starring us in the face and we were trapped. Despite that, the kids were not sad, they were still having fun, until we look over at poor Zakk...don't worry, some candy quickly cheered him back up...

But the rain eventually let up and we continued on. It was a little harder since we were wet and there was no sign of the sun to dry us off but the lines cleared out quite a bit. Our next stop was an oldie but goodie...It's A Small World After All...Zakk actually fell asleep.

We made it to the Haunted Mansion...beware of hitchhiking ghosts...

and the Country Bear Jamboree...

and the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and then everyone started to get cranky so we decided to leave and we made it to the entrance and we had to snap out of it and realize that we needed to, "suck it up" because we weren't going to get another chance the rest of the trip to see the Electrical Light Parade so we got some $8 hot dogs, found a spot on the curb and waited for the parade to start. I could almost hear Kevin thinking, "we were so close...we almost made it to the exit!"

We had our bellies filled and everything was looking up until we heard, "the electrical light parade has been postponed due to inclement weather." "What? No!" I wasn't going to accept it and we had rock star seats that everyone tried to steal every time we got up to stretch. So we stuck it out. Then the announcement came on again but I refused to listen and we were prepared (as much as we could be) for the downpour that was about to happen. Then the parade went on and we didn't get rained on the rest of the evening!

I did start to record the parade and then my camera went dead about 1 minute into it. Why do I feel like I spent so much time preparing yet I'm so unprepared? Maybe someone just wanted me to see the parade through something other than a camera lens. It was great!!