Disney: Day 1!

Disney - here we come!  We were so excited for this trip.  Jarrod and I have been talking about when we'd take the kids to Disney for quite a while.  We had planned to take them last winter, but decided Riley wasn't quite ready for that, so we postponed the trip and on a whim, booked this vacation in May when we heard about a deal they were offering the week of Gavin's October break this year.  We finally told the kids in August that we were going, and together, we worked to plan and prepare for this trip (though I'm not going to lie...I did most of the work.  Haha!)  Let me tell you - planning a Disney trip is really like a full time job.  There is so much thinking ahead of time that needs to be done to make sure you make the most out of this trip, because let's face it...it's an EXPENSIVE trip!  Finally, our morning to leave was here!

The kids did great on the flight, despite waking up at 4am!  We never even had to break out the iPad.  Talk about impressive.  They took turns on the first layover napping on me, which I just ate up.  There's nothing like rocking your almost-3.5 year old to sleep in an airport.  <3 font="">

We finally made it to Orlando and took the Magical Express to our resort.  Staying on Disney property has all sorts of benefits, like not having to worry about transportation or our luggage!  How nice.

We were all giddy when we arrived on property, and then we entered our resort, Wilderness Lodge, to see this gorgeous place...

We were absolutely in awe.  It was breathtakingly beautiful.  This resort honestly wasn't even on our list of potential properties when we started researching because it's considered a 'deluxe' resort and was out of our price range.  But, because of the free dining special they had, it ended up costing the same as the moderate resorts we were looking at that didn't offer free dining, so it was a no-brainer to go big!  Now, of course, we will be spoiled and want to stay in 'deluxe' from now on, but this place definitely had its perks.  

We ended up calling the day before and upgrading to a room with bunk beds to surprise the kids.  When we originally booked, we opted not to because it was more.  By the time the trip rolled around, I think we'd already spent so much that we just said 'screw it!' and decided to go for it.  The kids were so excited when they walked in. 

We were less than thrilled by our 'woods' view at first - but it ended up being exactly what I wanted.  We could see the fireworks from Magic Kingdom each night from our room, just over the trees.  It was awesome.

We didn't stay in the room long.  We went right down and took the bus to Downtown Disney to explore.  It was nice because we were able to meet up with Jarrod's cousin, Steve, and his family.  We hadn't seem them since Steve and Heather got married, and so we got to meet their little girl, Taylor, for the first time.

We definitely didn't experience all the Downtown Disney had to offer, but of course, we hit up the Lego store.  Gavin was so excited, yet so sad that I wouldn't let him spend his souvenir money on more Legos.

Next stop, we sat down for dinner at an Irish restaurant where you could see Irish dancers dancing on the tabletops - except, too bad for us, they put us in the back corner in a separate room so you couldn't see anyone dancing.  We weren't too thrilled with the food there, but it was still nice to sit down and catch up with Steve and Heather.  Riley was ready to fall asleep at dinner and kept asking if we could just go back to the hotel.  But, little did she know, we had one more surprise for her that day...

 

 Last stop for the night was World of Disney, where we did a lot of 'adding to our Christmas wishlist.'  She wanted everything, of course.  They had this adorable 'magic mirror' that was really neat.  When a girl walks in front of the mirror, it magically shows them wearing the different princess dresses.  I snapped a quick pic of each dress before it moved on to the next one.  Not great quality, but you get the idea.

 We were then chauffeured into the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for her surprise makeover, which deserves a post of its own.  :)