Disney World, 2018, Days 7-9

We are on the last leg of our Disney Vacay.  Only three days left! We were already getting sad about leaving.  Day 7 was spent at the resort and the Blizzard Beach waterpark and then a half day at Animal Kingdom.  Brad and I basically let the kids ride all the rides and do what they wanted to do at the waterpark.  We would have them check in every 30 minutes or so.  We got there when the park opened, and we left around three, which was fine, because it was beginning to look like rain. The waterpark had a nice sandy area in front of the wave pool, where we decided to camp out for the afternoon.  Much like the resort, there was a drink mug that you could buy to get free refills.  They had slushies as part of the free refill as well, so the kids took full advantage of this.  We got to try the beach sand pail full of ice cream.  The kids loved it.  It was able to feel all of us. Overall, it was a good day to sit back and relax, especially since we went so hard at the parks. When we got back to the resort, we got cleaned up and dressed for a night at Animal Kingdom.  We had another ride we had a fast pass for in the world of Pandora.  For an early dinner, we ate in Pandora at Satu'li Canteen.  We had the cheeseburger steamed pods because we had heard so much about them.  We also tried the blueberry cream cheese mouse, which was hands down, one of my favorite desserts to date, in the parks.  We didn't do much in the park except ride some rides and we did our fast passes. 


Our beach at the Caribbean Resort

Sand Pail Ice cream treat!

We love Blizzard Beach Goofy!

 

Pandora

Expedition Everest



Tree of Life

Pandora

Cheeseburger pods

Blueberry cheesecake mousse

Since we really haven't spent much time at our resort, we decided to sleep in just a tad bit on day 8, begin to prepare to head home, and hang out at the resort pool.  We enjoyed the morning exploring and relaxing.  The Caribbean Beach resort has a huge themed pool not far from our room.  It was set up like an old Spanish fort.  There were slides and lots of places to sit and relax. Goofy and Daisy came out to entertain the kids.  They had fun pool games to keep the kids entertained.

                 



 We decided we needed a little park therapy in the afternoon, so we voted, and the kids decided that we would hit up Magic Kingdom. I was happy with this decision, because I could finally try out a DOLE WHIP!!!  We rode a few rides, got a few pictures, then we decided to take the Monorail over to Epcot.  Riding the Monorail was one thing that we wanted to do, so we decided to make the most of it.  While at Epcot, we visited the countries that we didn't get to see the first day we visited.  We rode some rides, met a lot of characters and we ended up eating dinner in Mexico at La Cantina de San Angel.  I'm not a heavy drinker, but I ended up getting a margarita.  I'm in Mexico, so I felt like it was a must.  Well, that margarita hit me hard! I was a bit giddy after finishing my one small drink.  We were glad that we made an entire day of it, and we headed back to the resort late to finish packing.  Before we left, we had some snack credits that we needed to spend, so we got a bunch of packaged rice krispie treats to take home.  We figured they would be good snacks for the road. We have had a long, fun and exciting week. We were sad that it was over. It is no longer a one and done type of vacation. We will most certainly try to get here every so often!

Dole Whip!

Last castle pictures

                      

          

                                                                   Last castle pictures 

We wanted this balloon picture so bad!

We loved riding the monorail.  It was relaxing and it gave us a look around some of the parks and resorts that we had not seen. 



Pluto 



Our last and final picture in any of the parks. We were happy that we had such
An amazing time, but we were also sad to be leaving it all behind.

On our last and final day, we didn't have any more park tickets, but we did have one more dining reservation planned.  We had an Ohana breakfast scheduled.  We had heard mixed revues, so we were excited to see what the hype was all about.  The resort itself was beautiful.  The lobby was very beachy and cute.  We were in line for our reservation for what felt like forever.  We ended up being seated an hour past our time.  So far, we weren't impressed.  We felt like they had us herded like cattle.  Once we were in and finally seated, we had the best view of the entire place, I swear!  The family dining experience was neat.  They sat a large bowl in the middle of the table, with waffles, meats, eggs and potatoes. They had a breakfast juice that was quite yummy.  We had also heard about their bread service, and it was to die for!  During breakfast, Mickey, Lilo and Stitch came to visit the table. Sophie and I had on our Stitch ears and shirts on for the occasion.  

 

       

                                             The lobby of the Polynesian and the bread service

 

                   

                                               Stitch Waffles!!!  Braden at the entrance to Ohana

 

                                         Just like every other restaurant, the kids got a Birthday celebration

 

                                                       We love meeting characters, Braden....not so much :)

 

                                                               After breakfast, they had a line to meet Pluto

 

We loved the view from our seats!

 

 

XOXO...Becky

Disney World, 2018, Days 4-6

We left off on day three, where we were at Magic Kingdom.  We have been going hard every single day, and today was no different.  Day four has us going to Epcot.  We weren't as excited to visit this park as the others, because we hadn't heard much about it that was good.  We were pleasantly surprised, and this ended up being Brad's favorite park.  We rode rides, walked around and went to many shows.  Our favorite show that we saw, was the Gaurdian's of the Galaxy show.  We got the most adorable Groot cup.  The kids danced and sang to all of the songs, and it was adorable. Something that was on my bucket list for Epcot, was to get a Starbucks drink and to try out some of the drinks of the world.  We had heard that the Starbucks inside Epcot was the absolute best. To be honest, it wasn't any different than ours back home, except it was in the best possible location!  We loved trying the different drinks around the world.  Our personal favorite was the Beverly.  Another bucket list item was the rose gold cupcake that we had heard so much about.  Rose gold was definitely the thing while we were there.  People had rose gold EVERYTHING!  We walked through about half of the different countries.  We enjoyed learning about different cultures and we loved watching the kids interact in them.  Our meal that we had planned was an evening dinner at Akershush.  This was a Princess character meal.  My son was annoyed and the only thing he enjoyed was the meal itself. Typical boy!  Just like every other restaurant, the kids were treated like royalty because it was their birthday week.  When we left, we were amazed with how gorgeous Spaceship Earth was!  We took numerous pictures. 

Groot cup!

Rose Gold Cupcake

Sophie's Belle Cupcake

                               
                                             Belle and Sophie               Happy Birthday!

Spaceship Earth...We loved how it changed colors constantly!

Brad stayed back at the resort to do laundry, which I didn't mind. I think he was burnt out on the park for a bit and just wanted to chill.  He planned on meeting up with us for our meal reservations.  We were excited to start our 5th day, because we were headed back to Magic Kingdom.  We wanted to get more castle pictures and we were excited to ride some of the rides we missed.  We met so many characters on this day.  Sophie bought an autograph book and a penny book for the pressed pennies.  We found many places to flatten them, so her book was filled by the end of the trip.    Remember the bucket list items?  Well, we finally got to meet Gaston!  It was so much fun!  Some of the food items on our list was a churro and a Cheshire Cat Tail.  They were both amazing. We got to try and muscle the Sword in the Stone from its perch. We had heard that sometimes, the sword gets pulled out.  A tip that we had heard, was that if you ask a staff member in the shops for some magic, they will quote the Tinkerbelle ditty, and sprinkle some pixie dust on your head.  Well, Sophie and I tried it out, and we both got a dose of magic sprinkled on us for the day.  Today was the day that we get to eat at the CASTLE!!!  We were stoked about this and were all looking forward to it.  We had a late afternoon reservation.  The kids got swords and wands, and yet again, the waitress made sure if was very special for their birthdays.  The food was decent and the view was spectacular. Towards the end of the day, we started to make our way to the front of the park for the nightly show.  We got the kids some glow in the dark cotton candy and found some pretty decent spots to wait.  It touched me more than I thought it would.  When a group of hundreds of people join in and sing songs from Frozen, it is certainly touching.  Brad and I were quite impressed with how much work had to have gone into the show.  After the fireworks were over, we got a few pictures in front of the castle.  I was glad that I paid extra for the picture plan.  We got some pretty sweet shots.  We only had our cell phones in the park so it was nice to get decent shots with all of us together. One thing that we were upset about today, was the fact that the carousel was  shut down for maintenance, but that stuff has to get done.   Overall, it was a fantastic day, but we were sad to leave, since this was our last day at Magic Kingdom.

                    
                     Cheshire Cat Tail and some street art after we had a good rain blow through.

              
                     Castle Picture                                                          Gaston
 

Birthday Dessert from Cinderella's Royal Table

Cinderella

                        
                                              These pictures don't do the castle justice

Animal Kingdom was on the docket for day six!  We weren't interested in the animals, because we have been to zoos, so we didn't want to waste our time with that.  Our favorite part of the park was Pandora, Expedition Everest and the Rivers of Light show.  Expedition Everest was ridden by the kids at least three times. They would have done it more if we would have let them. We were NOT impressed with the Dinosaur land.  It felt like cheap carnival rides to us and we spent very little time there.  There were some African street shows  going on that were fun and interactive.  Sophie enjoyed being taught some dances.  The one area that was truly spectacular, was the world of Pandora.  The details that went into the planning was insane.  At night, when it was all lit up, it was magical.  Pandora was fairly new when we were there, so it was extremely long waiting for the two rides.  Luckily, it got fast passes for both of them.  I got one for each day. There were shops in Pandora that were selling the Avatar ears and knives.  Sophie got one of each, and Braden only wanted the knife.  They were super cute on the kids.  Our dinner for the day was lunch at Tusker House, which was a character meal.  We met Mickey and friends dressed for the safari.  This was a dinner and a show package.  We got special fast pass tickets for seating at the Rivers of Light show for that evening.  This meal was a buffet and the characters came around to our tables.  It was very interactive and fun.  Again, Braden, being a bit older and being a boy, wasn't into it as much as Sophie.  We had another busy day, and as soon as the nightly show was over, a torrential down pour happened.  We basically ran through the rain to the busses.  We had quite an ending to another wonderful day.

XOXO...Becky

P.S.  Picture overload again!



My little Avatar

Finally got him in a picture with a Character

This picture does not to the Tree of Life justice

                                

In front of Everest 

Enjoying some Mickey ice cream sandwiches! 

Rivers of Life 

Pandora’s Na’Vi River Journey

They were posing for me before we rode Expedition
Everest