Disney World Day 8: The Magic Kingdom

If you're actually reading this, you're probably thinking, "Finally!  She's almost done talking about her trip!"  Sorry, but we're finally down to our last day.

 

I hate the last day.  I hate it so much.  Because I totally agree with my kids.  It would be really, really fun to live at Disney World! 

 We had a few more characters that we needed to meet.  And if you look at Finley's face, you'll see her excitement about finally meeting Donald Duck.  She is obsessed with that guy!

 We went to visit Mickey, and for the first time ever, he TALKED to them.  You can see the pure joy on Wyatt's face.  He was so excited!

 And so was Hudson!

 We took one last ride on Space Mountain.

We stopped to visit with Merida.



Hugs included!

 

Peter Pan cracked these kids up.  The boys thought he was hysterical!  He picked up Reese's autograph book full of princess pictures. and kept pointing and saying, "EW! Girl!  Are they kissing?  Oh gross!"



Then he offered to have a "falling on the floor" contest with the kids.  He won!  Ha!

 We stopped at the sword in the stone so that they could try to reenact Wyatt's great feat of 2008.  Unfortunately, there was no movement this time!

 

Brian managed to get us an early reservation for Be Our Guest for dinner.  The lunch was so good, and we figured it wouldn't hurt to ask about dinner! We were able to sit right by the windows with snow falling, and it was a great experience.  I honestly preferred the food at lunch, but it was still really fun!  And we were able to meet the Beast after our meal!

 After dinner we rode a few more rides - but the park had gotten really crowded and wait times were ridiculous!  We went on the People Mover one last time - it really is one of everyone's favorite rides!

 

We stopped on the way out to take a few more pictures and pick up a few packages.  Brian was able to take these from the train platform on Main Street/

 

I always like to stop and take one last look at the park before we leave.  It really is the most magical place on earth!

Disney World Day 7: Hollywood Studios and Downtown Disney

We had a great time on our first visit to Hollywood Studios, but we still had a lot we wanted to do - especially since it's also the land of Disney Junior!

The kids wanted to meet Pluto.  Especially Finley.  Look at that face!

And the "We're meeting Pluto" dance!

No visit to Hollywood Studio is complete without a friendly Toy Story mania competition.

I love that ride!  I don't know what it is about it.  Just arcade-y and fun!

We decided to stop and visit with Buzz and Woody.  The boys were wearing their "Toy to the World" shirts, so it seemed appropriate.

We are huge Toy Story fans - all of us!  I still love watching this video of Wyatt acting out the beginning of Toy Story 2!

Wandering Oaken's Trading Post closed not long after our visit, but we stopped there to do some Frozen shopping, and the kids wanted to play in the snow!

And we got our pictures taken with Anna and Elsa - score!

We went to see Disney Junior Live on Stage, and then we stopped to say hi to our favorite characters.  I just have to say that I wish Doc was available without having to do the character meal.  We love Sofia and Jake, but Doc is one of our favs, too!

We stopped for one more ride on Star Tours.  We rode first thing that morning, and Wyatt was the Rebel Spy.  On their final ride of our trip, Hudson was the chosen Rebel Spy.  He was SO excited to tell me when they were finished.  Brian even stopped to buy him and "I am the Rebel Spy" shirt to announce his success!

Three very happy rebel spies!

We left the park pretty early and thought we could just take the bus from Hollywood Studios to Downtown Disney - because that would make sense, right?  Not having to go back to our resort first?  Yeah, there are no buses to Downtown Disney at the park.  And we didn't find that out until we'd waited 30 minutes for a bus (there are signs that say "Downtown Disney" - those just go to the non-Disney hotels.  Ugh.).

When we finally made it to the resort bus loop, Hudson decided to use The Force to get the bus to come to our stop!

Once we finally made it to Downtown Disney, we had to immediately stop to get this guy's picture taken with Pooh!  It's tradition!  I can't believe how much he's grown!

We managed to get into the T-Rex restaurant pretty quickly, but it was still a pretty late dinner for the kids!  They didn't mind though - they were eating next to a T-Rex!

Hudson was obviously mesmerized by the meteor shower!  It is a fun (expensive!) experience for the kids.  At least we made it out without building Dinosaurs this time!

After dinner the kids were exhausted.  We had some Christmas shopping that we needed to do, so Brian stayed at Downtown Disney to shop while his parents and I went back to the hotel with the kids.  Hudson was passed out, Finley was antsy, and the bus was packed. But we made it back and I got them in bed to rest for our final day.  Brian was at Downtown Disney until eleven, but at least he made a dent in our Christmas shopping!

Disney World Day 6: Magic Kingdom, Take 2!

We did our best to take advantage of Extra Magic Hours on the sixth day if our trip.  It was a long, really, really fun day at the Magic Kingdom - it could also be titled, "The Princess Edition."

The day started with Brian, his parents, and Wyatt, Reese, and Hudson getting in line for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. It wasn't "Fast Pass-able" when we booked our trip, so they had to wait for about 45 minutes.  Fortunately (for me!), Brian picked up a Rider Swap when he was getting on the ride!

While they waited, I took this girl on her own adventure.  I'm going to be brutally honest and say that this time hanging out with her was the calmest, most peaceful time of the vacation for me.  It was totally low key and fun!

We went on Dumbo with no wait (and we "made friends" with another mom doing the same thing).  She loved her some Dumbo!

We also hopped on Winnie the Pooh, and we got a text that everyone else was done right around the time we finished up at Voyage of the Little Mermaid.  Finley and I stopped for a a few pictures.

And an "extra magic shot" with Sebastian.

Brian and I used the Rider Switch to ride the Mine Train together.

The girls stopped to meet Princess Aurora.

We had Fast Passes for Splash Mountain - we had to strategically place the kids so that Hudson would actually show up in the picture.

Woody and Jessie are obviously very popular with these four.

The Photopass photographer bailed just before we got to the front of the line, so this is our picture. A heads up would have been nice, because the lighting was totally off.

We Fast Passed our meetings with these princesses.

And we stopped to meet with Tiana before the parade.  She is always one of our very favorite princesses.  We haven't met a Tiana yet that isn't good with the kids.  

Hugs for Finley Quinn!

We ended up with decent seats for the parade after our meeting with Tiana. It was such a good parade!  The floats were amazing, and the kids loved it!

We stopped for a picture with the kids in front of Splash Mountain on our way to Pirates of the Caribbean!

We also managed to squeeze in the Jack Sparrow show and the Jingle Cruise before we visited with Jasmine!  We were bummed that Aladdin wasn't with her, but the girls loved it!

I promise the boys had fun that day - they were off riding rides with Daddy or Mimi and Baba while the girls met princesses!