So as you all saw, the big reveal was wonderful. They loved the idea of a treasure hunt and had no idea what was going on. And truly didn’t believe it after they received the final clue. Once the realized it was real they ran all through the neighborhood yelling it to anybody who would listen. And then Emily immediately wanted to start packing. Silly girl, we are already packed.
Getting them to bed that night was a bit of a struggle, but they did in fact finally fall asleep. Josh and I finished packing and loading the car up with everything we could the night before, that way in the morning we only had to add the one final suitcase to the trunk of the car and be on our way.
The alarm went off at 4am, but I think I had been awake all night. I got up and got cleaned up and finished the last minute packing of contact solution and hair brushes. We woke the kids up at about 4:30, they got dressed and we were on the road before 5am, a true miracle for us. As we are usually running late in situations like this. I had checked us in with Southwest the day before, so we simply checked our bags and headed through security with little problems and onto our gate area to sit and wait for a while.
The first flight to Houston was uneventful and short. We arrived in Houston and we were all famished, so we headed to the food court for a little breakfast. Josh and I had breakfast tacos, Emily had a breakfast sandwich from Wendy’s and Jacob ate 10 chicken nuggets. He was hungrier than usual.
We next boarded the “Disney flight” as it was filled with families with young children all heading to Orlando for vacation. After we boarded, we waited and waited and waited. It seems that the bathroom needed to be replaced. The removed and replaced the commode in the rear restroom. After about 2 hours with no updates as to why we were delayed (we were just close to the restroom, so we knew what was happening) we were finally in the sky. Jacob took a little nap, as did I. It was late afternoon by then and it had already been a long day.
We arrived in Orlando and we found our car and off the hotel. Disney World is quite a way from the airport and the kids got a little antsy as we headed there. Even I was antsy. I was ready for the fun to begin. Our delay has not only with our flight, but it set the whole day back a few hours.
We drove up to our hotel, Pop Century and the kids were amazed. Tons of oversized icons and tons of memorabilia littered the grounds and lobby. It was really neat to see. We got checked in, after a small wait in line and headed off to our room. We had a decent room assignment. All the rooms are exactly the same, just a room, but we were close to one of the three pools-but not too close that we could hear the noise coming from it and not to far from the bus stops. After settling in a little and up packing a little, in order to get the suitcases out of the way-the room wasn’t nearly large enough to leave them out for the week-we got ready to head out. We went straight for the bus stops to the Magic Kingdom. We waited for what seemed like ages, and finally a bus arrived and we were off to the park.
We walked in and it was just as I remembered it. I love main street and as we walked down I realized that there were more people there than I had anticipated. We were headed towards Tomorrowland and a show at the castle began. It had Mickey, Minnie, several princesses and their princes, Peter Pan, Wendy, Hook and Maleficent. We all stopped as the kids stood in awe, trying to take it all in.
After the show was over I insisted that we eat first thing, as we hadn’t eaten since Houston and I knew that crankiness would begin if food was not added to the stomachs of everybody. Jacob refused to eat, because he wanted ride the roller coasters. So, we ate a quick meal, with Jacob only eating some grapes, carrots and a cookie.
After the meal we headed straight for Space Mountain. The wait lime was 90 minutes, so we Fast Passed it and headed over to the Buzz Lightyear ride. This ride is very similar to the Scooby Doo ride at Six Flags, so the kids jumped right in and really enjoyed it. After we rode Buzz Lightyear we went back to ride Space Mountain, as it was nearly time for our Fast Pass to be good. Oh NO! Space Mountain is “down” and they don’t when it will be back up, but keep your Fast Pass, it will be good all day now, since the ride went down.
The kids were disappointed so decided to get our first treat and headed over to the ice cream cart. Because we were on the meal plan, it was “free” meaning we had already paid for it up front. SO no money left our pockets at that moment. The kids were thrilled to get the ice cream and by the time we were done with our snack, the ride was up and running again.
We head through the Fast Pass entrance and down the long dark queue. Zipping by all the poor folks who are waiting in the stand by line. We get up the loading station and Jacob rides in the very front, with Josh behind him, followed by me with Emily in the car directly behind me. And we are off. I love Space Mountain. I think it is my favorite mountain ride at WDW. Hearing Jacob cackle with delight as we whipped around in “space” and listening to Emily scream with delight was one of the best memories I have of the trip. It was great. And they loved it, and of course wanted to ride it over and over again. But we moved on.
Next was … a Disney classic… It’s a Small World. I love it because it is so simple. But Josh had tainted my children and it was like torture to them. I loved it, but… alas, the family, not so much.
We headed over to Frontierland to ride Big Thunder Mountain but on the way passed through Liberty Square where the Haunted Mansion lives.
We decided to hit that since there was NO wait. Jacob was too scared to watch any of it and I am not a fan of the updates recently added to incorporate it more to the movie made with Eddie Murphy. After we scared the kids to bits we headed over and rode Big Thunder Mountain. The wait was minimal, maybe 20 minutes and the kids were hyped up by this point. We all enjoyed the ride, but it wasn’t as wonderful as I remembered it being. Splash Mountains wait was ridiculous, so we passed on it and headed through Frontierland into Advetureland where we got onto Pirates of the Caribbean. Now, this has long been one of my favorite rides, but they have made it too PC and added (dare I say it) too much Johnny Depp. Not a favorite anymore. After Pirates and quite a stay in the gift shop, we moved over to the Jungle Cruise, which is surprisingly quite a bit better in the evening, when the sun has gone down. It doesn’t look quite as worn as it does in the daylight. The kids really enjoyed it, but were confused that the animals were not real. At this point we are all about to die, so we decide to head out of the park and back to the room. Plenty of time for the Magic Kingdom on Day 3, when we will be back.
Once we return to the hotel we all realize (at 9pm) how incredibly hungry we all are. We head down and buy a pizza and purchase the refillable mugs at the food court. This was all out of pocket, as the credits needed for the pizza were not worth what they would be at another restaurant.
We head back to the room, chow down like people who haven’t eaten in a week and head to bed. While we are laying in the dark, trying to contain our excitement, Emily says, “This is where dreams come true.”
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