Thursday, May 19, 2016

DisneyWorld!

I have somewhere around 1,000 pictures from our Spring Break trip in March to DisneyWorld.
But don't worry, I won't regale you with them. I'll regale you with my a few of my favorites instead! 

Magic Kingdom
This is my favorite park of the four Disney parks in Orlando. It is one of my happy places in life, joining the ranks of other favorites like Cape Cod and Prince Edward Island. We spent two fun-filled days here.



Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is the park's newest and currently most popular ride.

Here's a special custom-made video of us on the ride!
I have to confess that I've watched this video way more than than is probably normal because it fills me with joy!


Splash Mountain has always been one of my favorite rides. 
This was our first time ever riding it all together as a family!

Check out the lack of crowds behind us!
That's the magic and perk of early-morning hours, and it's a very good reason to stay in a Disney resort. 

Us, Walt, and Mickey.


I can't ride the spinning teacups anymore because spinning rides like that make me nauseated.
But I loved this ride when I was younger, just like the boys do now!





Hollywood Studios
We had lots of fun here! We went three different times.



Sam was thrilled to get his face painted like Darth Maul, one of his favorite bad guys.

John sat on this same Star Wars thing six years ago when he had just turned five.
2016: 

2010:

The boys did Jedi Training Academy, where they got to be in a show and get trained as Jedis and fight Darth Vader one-on-one. Sam said it was one of the best days of his life. :-)
John's on the left in the green robe, Sam's to the right of the Jedi master, wearing a brown robe.





Here are John and I on the Hollywood Tower of Terror ride (can you find us?). This ride freaked me out!

And another video for your viewing pleasure, of John and I on the Tower of Terror:




Animal Kingdom


 Our favorite ride in all four of the parks was Expedition Everest. It's such a fun and well-designed rollercoaster. It even goes backwards! And there's a loop-de-loop in the dark! And there's a giant yeti! We rode it twice on two different days thanks to the magic of FastPass. 


We did hardly any character meet and greets on this trip. That's a benefit of Disney cruises--you can meet the characters much more easily on the ship, so when you go the parks, you don't feel like it's something you need to do, which gives you more time for other things. 
But we did meet with Rafiki from The Lion King! This was our only family picture with a character!


The boys met Baloo and King Louie too. It was a fun interaction. King Louie pretended to be hypnotized by Sam's snake, which happened to be a stuffed animal of Kaa from the new movie that was coming out. It was really cute.


The Tree of Life






This gorilla is the coolest. I love this picture.

I thought this shimmery iridescent bird was the prettiest little thing.

 Epcot

This was our first time ever going to Epcot. It was fun, and I don't think we gave it the full attention it deserved, especially the amazing World Showcase. When we go back, we'll definitely spend more time there.

We finally got to get up close to the iconic gigantic silver golf ball!


Disney's MemoryMaker picture package is totally worth it, by the way. It makes getting good pictures of your family very easy. 


 


And finally, we stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge, where we could watch many different types of animals below us right from our balcony.


It was a really neat place to stay. Next time we go to DisneyWorld, I want to stay at one of the resorts on the monorail loop. I've got my sights set on you, Polynesian Resort!

One last picture to wrap up this post with. I loved taking pictures of Cinderella's castle! 
I guess I'm a Disney princess at heart. :-)