Final Days of Disney

Friday. I didn't want to face the fact that our vacation was almost over. I found myself going into panic mode again, wanting to fit it all in. Kelly stopped me quickly, told me to breathe and enjoy it. He's so good for me. :) The only drawback I worried about - I hadn't brought an extra sim card for the camera, and mine was almost full. I spent 20 minutes that morning deleting fuzzy pictures so I could capture as much magic as possible - then I'd just point at what I wanted Steph to take pictures of for me! LOL!

We were out the door early to catch the opening on Hollywood Studios, Star Wars Weekend. Oh, my goodness! THIS was one of the highlights of the trip. Star Troopers were staked out all over the entrance. They put on quite a show, and of course all the other characters were stationed throughout the park for photo ops. We saw Darth Vadar, Luke and Lea, Anakin and Padme, Asohka Tano, Mace Windu, Boba Fett, and so many others. I know for those of you who aren't Star Wars fans, this means less than Pig Latin. But for freaks like us, it was like meeting rock stars! It's the personal touch that makes Disney so special, and this is no exception. When we met Anakin Skywalker, he called me over and "warned" me to watch my youngling (Canon). He was concerned about his color preference of blade. Dark siders tend to carry red light sabers. :) He also really made up with Caleb, and informed me that the Force was strong with this one. It's cheesy, I know, but we were all so excited!

Besides the characters, the park was just awesome. I wouldn't say it's my favorite - come on, you know the Magic Kingdom stole my heart - but it was great. Jason and Kelly took off to get our Toy Story Mania fast passes, and I took Logan and Canon (yes, Canon!!) to ride Tower of Terror. I begged and pleaded, but couldn't get the others to do it. But my fearless five year old was all over it! Gotta love that kid! :) Logan was prepping him the whole way, telling him what to expect, and I think he felt prepared. He kept a death grip on my arm, and looked like the tan had been slapped off him when it was over, but he yelled, "I LOVED IT! That was totally wicked!!!" I let him pick something out from the gift shop to commemorate his first big boy ride. He chose a key to the haunted hotel.

We met back up and headed to Rock N Roller Coaster, which was out of commission - what a bummer! But it was just one of those things that I had to say, "Next time!" about. Star Tours was next up, since we had another hour to wait for our fast passes to be available. I have to admit, we were all ready for the Toy Story experience. We had such a good time, just wandering around this park. So much to see, it was great. Kelly and Caleb took off on their own, the rest of us went to meet some characters, then went to see Muppets in 3D. So funny - those old men always crack me up!

It was time - we were going to Toy Story Mania! Yippee!! I wondered, would this be a disappointment? It was one of those things so built up that I feared it couldn't live up to the hype. Boy, was I wrong! Think of any target game you've ever loved. My favorite was Duck Hunt for Nintendo growing up. Now think of that times 50, then put it on steroids, not to mention add your favorite Toy Story characters cheering you on. Then put yourself in a moving, swirling, spinning cart and add 3D glasses and you may just begin to imagine what this "ride" is like. One of my favorites of the whole trip. We were watching our tally and wanting to beat the others in our group, but there was so much fun around you, it didn't really matter if you hit all the targets. I just loved it. If it weren't for the 2 hour wait, I'd had gone over and over and over again.

We had fit all of this into about 3 hours. It was only 12:30 at this point! But Kelly and the boys were tired, and they decided to go back to the hotel. Chloe was heartbroken - she hadn't gotten to meet her favorite character yet, Asohka Tano. I felt so bad for her, and I wanted to stay as well. I thought it would cause an argument, so we all headed to the gate. But Kelly stopped us and encouraged me to stay with Chloe and let her see Asohka. It was the first, and really only time the whole trip we'd gone to separate locations, but it was a great thing. Chloe and I got some one on one time, the boys got to take much needed naps (Kelly included), and we all had a great outlook going into the next event - closing down Magic Kingdom again. We were going to meet up with Tia - finally!!

Final Disney post

And then Friday was upon us. We couldn't believe how quickly it was going. I was amazed at how much we'd seen, but how much more there was to see! I felt we'd barely begun.

We were off to Hollywood Studios to try our luck with Star Wars Weekend again. The weather was slightly cooler, we were going to be there at opening, and we had Jason and Steph with us. With all these bonuses, we figured it would be a much better day! :D And it was.

Opening ceremonies at DHS are soo neat! There were storm troopers on top of the

Disney pt.3

Wednesday we headed for Animal Kingdom - yay! It was our first day in the park, and we were really excited to go on the safari - and I couldn't wait to try Everest! We got to meet some characters - Chirt from Tarzan, Baloo, and King Louie. We headed to get fast passes for Kilimanjaro Safari, then went to do a few other things. We watched It's Tough to be a Bug, which was SO CUTE!!

After the show, we headed over to get in line for Everest. We stopped on the way to see the monkeys. They were out and very active. They were yelping and hollering so loud that we couldn't believe that it was real - we kept looking for a speaker that was making all the noise! Then it was on to Everest. The wait was only 7 or 8 minutes. We couldn't believe it. I loved it, but couldn't convince any of the kids to go on it with me. Oh, well, next time, right? :)

When we finished Everest, we headed over to Kilimanjaro Safari to use our fast passes. I decided to reapply sunscreen on all the kids before walking over. Unfortunately, it was hot and the kids were really sweaty. The suncreen ran into Chloe's eye and really stung. She cried forever, we took her to the bathroom and rinsed her eyes out. Then we gave her a moist napkin to hold on her eye herself. It took a while, but she finally calmed down. I know that drama is going to be a good thing...one day! :)

The Safari was amazing. We were so close to the animals! I couldn't believe how realistic the safari was. The driver was very enthusiastic, and the kids really enjoyed themselves.

Then we stopped to get some lunch at Yak and Yeti's quick service. If you haven't tried it, you totally should. :D It was so yummy, and the servings were enormous! Then we headed over to Dinoland. On the way, we got a great surprise - we saw DeVine!! Oh, my goodness, this was so neat. DeVine is a park favorite, and pretty rare to get a glimpse of her, let alone have an up close and personal experience with her like we did. She is dressed completely in foliage so that she blends in with the trees. She moves very slowly on stilts, very cool to see. She came out of the trees after someone had spotted her. She moved toward us, and I was snapping pictures like crazy. She stopped in front of me, then moved on to Kelly, sliding right behind him. He was afraid to move for fear of knocking her over! It was very cool.

When we got to Dinoland, Jason and I headed over to Dinosaur with Logan, Chloe and Connor, while Steph and Kelly took the rest of the kids to the Boneyard. I was really looking forward to doing this ride, knowing it was going to be a lot like Jurassic Park. Chloe was feeling brave, so we let her go on it with me. Let me tell ya, that was a BIG mistake! We were a ways into the ride, screaming like crazy, when I realized Chloe wasn't screaming in fun. She was terrified! I put my arm around to tell her it was ok, but then she started crying inconsolably! She didn't ride anything else for the rest of the day.

We headed to Epcot from there, and Canon fell asleep on the bus! I felt so bad for
him! He'd gone hard all week, without complaint, and he literally just couldn't go any more. So when we got to Epcot, we let Caleb walk and put Canon in the stroller to sleep. He slept for two hours, then was good to go the rest of the night!
We had dinner that night at Teppan Edo. We celebrated Connor's birthday here, since it's his favorite kind of food. Unfortunately, the chef was the best part of the meal. Truly, our Japanese restaurants in Springfield are much better than anything we had here. But they treated us well, and gave Connor a chef's hat with Japanese writing to keep. He loved it. When we left the restaurant, we stepped over to the pond, and Chloe found a hidden Mickey on the grate. This was only the second one we'd seen the whole trip!

We took the kids over to ride Mission Space, then called it an early night, and headed back to the pool to swim. We didn't try to do a lot that night, because we planned on being there all the next day.

We took it easy the next morning (Thursday)and headed to Epcot about 10. We got our fast passes for Soarin', watched Circle of Life, went on Living with the Land, and got some lunch. We went to Soarin' right after that. Wow, was it totally worth it! It was so breathtaking, I couldn't believe the feeling of flying over San Francisco. It was one of our favorite moments of the trip! We then went to Journey into Imagination with Figment. Oh, it was so cute! Caleb just loved Figment, and so did Canon. We played a lot of the games and little experiments after the ride, which was a lot of fun. Then we went to watch Universe of Energy with Ellen. We loved it - the feeling of being surrounded by the screen was nearly as exciting as Soarin'. We were heading to Animal Kingdom for dinner at Yak & Yeti's. This was going to be Canon's birthday celebration. Unfortunately, he kind of got jipped. The waitress was really lousy, the food was only mediocre, and he almost didn't get his birthday cupcake. :( It was ok, though, because we caught the parade on our way out and he got to dance with Molly and Chloe. Now that's the way to celebrate your birthday! :)