But of course I have one piece of advice to share. I read so many websites and tips on how to maximize (but not stress out) your Disney experience but the one thing no one said and I wish I had known/thought about: Most of the rides are based on the movies! Peter Pan, Little Mermaid, and Winnie the Pooh all take you through the storylines and Ashton and Alex would have made stronger connections to them had they seen those movies. I mean, it seems obvious now, but on no one's tip list was "watch the movies before you go!" and, well, we didn't really :-/ But the boys do watch Disney Junior and by far one of the most magical moments was meeting Mickey himself. He has his own little theater at the front of the park and you go in to see him basically by yourself. He talks of course, but his face moves and his expression changes - he seems really alive. Which is funny, because when we were talking about going to Disney and meeting all of our favorite friends, Ashton was skeptical like "So are they going to be real? I mean, not just people in costumes?"
Anyway, it was so special. Next to Santa, I would imagine meeting Mickey is as magical as it gets when you are a child and it really showed on Ashton's face (Alex on the other hand was a bit suspicious and didn't go near any of the characters). But Ashton wore his mouse ears proudly the whole time and BOTH boys went on all the rides! I mean, even Alex, on the roller coasters and splash mountain! He was barely 40" tall, literally a hair too short, but they let him through. Poppy and Mema were with us too, I honestly didn't take too many photos but we did SO MUCH and the parade and all of it...incredibly awesome. WE LOVED IT. Here goes...
First stop Seven Dwarfs Mine Train - we waited 50 minutes for what is currently the hottest ride! Which was not built in to my itinerary but we recovered just fine ;)
Little Mermaid:
Meeting Goofy and Donald at Pete's Silly Side Show:
It's a Small World (even when you wait in line at Disney it is somehow fun!)
Tomorrowland:
Meeting Mickey:
The parade (even I was a little starstruck!) - there was so much energy, the music was really loud and infectious...here's the boys waving at Mickey at the end. It was so cute!
Jungle Cruise:
Splash Mountain cam:
Alex finally, finally fell asleep on Day 2 around 4:30 pm in front of the Country Bear Jamboree. Everyone was pushing around their zonked out kids but my youngest persevered until basically the last second.
(Ashton and I got soaked and I mean DRENCHED on Splash Mountain, which is why I had a sweatshirt on and you can see his shorts are only half dry:)
Our "picnic" at the end of Day 2. We had planned to stay for the 8 pm fireworks, but we were ready to go by 6, so we had hot dogs and then said good bye :)
I am like SMILING right now posting all these pictures (and thinking how much we experienced that as I said I don't have pictures of). But even if I did, words and pictures just can't describe it. It's that kind of place.
So when we weren't at Disney, we were staying at the Orlando World Center Marriott. It was massive, over 2100 rooms!! Multiple pools, water slides, and a kid splash area:
To say I was content to sit here is an understatement.
Main pool:
Ashton Alex and Jason were tiny specks in the huge ocean that was this pool. I couldn't even get it all in one picture (it goes way to the right with a hot tub and cave, and two more sections go back to the left beyond the first bump out).
They swam a lot! They wore lifejackets so I could sit on my lounge chair in peace and not worry about them, you know, drowning ;)
I should mention, we were here because Jason had a conference. So he was in and out during the time that we weren't at Disney and basically all day Thursday. Thursday was especially sweet because I knew a winter storm was dumping about 18 inches of snow in Massachusetts and I was in my bathing suit and sunglasses ;)
Friday we checked out and headed up to Palm Coast to Poppy and Mema's house. We sailed along the intercoastal waterway, swam in the pool and hit the beach (again, like zero pics) but it was perfect weather and I did NOT want to go home.
Being warm when it was so cold at home was heaven. I'll tell you what though, the angels abruptly stopped singing when we landed in Boston on Sunday.
We were the last flight in before the cancellations started - oh, yeah, it was another blizzard. It kind of worked in my favor because Monday was a snow day, which allowed me plenty of time to cry while I unpacked all our bathing suits and shorts and dealt with:
So there's that. Did I mention how much I loved Florida?
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