Destination Disney

Woooaaaa.... go away for a week and I get 4 new followers! Hi guys!

Now that I've gotten all of the vacation laundry taken care of... and while I'm trying to NOT finish putting away all of the rest of the junk we packed and bought, I thought I'd give you a bit of an overview of how the trip to the Big D went... That's Disney, not Dallas. ;-)

Our flight was wonderfully overbooked, but Jillian did well with her first flight. Except that she kept asking where the penguins and "sapengies" aka chimpanzees were... apparently we've let her see too much Madagascar. And in her lovely "I'm a 5 year old and I talk too much" way, kept asking the attendants when we were going to crash. I'm surprised we didn't get kicked off the plane. The girl was in RARE form.

We stayed at the Contemporary on the Monorail. I was so super excited. We've stayed at some of the non-monorail deluxe resorts before, but this was different. And MUCH more expensive... so I was practically giddy with anticipation by the time the Magical Express bus got us to the hotel. So when we checked into our "refurbished" room (they aren't done with all of the rooms yet) I *gasped* out loud. Folks, this is definately a "lesson learned" moment for me.

As far as Disney goes, More Money does NOT equal Better Room. Yes, it was a little bigger (because there were no dresser drawers). Yes, the bedding was nicer than the themed bedspreads that we've had. and YES, the walkway to the Magic Kingdom was really nice. That's where my praise ends I'm afraid. It was pretty dark in the room, even with the curtains opened. So when I went to turn on the lights I found that 3 of the main light bulbs were blown. Then I reached for the floor lamp. It was broken and the bulb blown too. The bathrooms were ok, but fancy flat sinks (that didn't drain well) and new wallpaper (which is already peeling) do not make a bathroom fabulous. The separate toilet would have been a nice idea, if you could access it while someone was showering. Not to mention the doors... OH the DOORS... Folks, let me be blunt here... Sliding glass doors with an 1 1/2 inch gap at the bottom does NOTHING to muffle sound. And that's ALL I'll say about that.

I really hope that the rooms in the Polynesian and the Grand Floridian are 100 times better. However, we'll never know, because as far as bang for your buck goes, it'll be Wilderness Lodge or Animal Kingdom lodge for us from now on. Those two... totally worth it.

We did a couple of new things that I have been sooo excited to tell you about.

1st and foremost. Toy Story Mania. It's the newest ride at Hollywood Studios. One of the cast members said it cost Disney $80 million to put in. It's possibly the best family ride in DisneyWorld. We'd heard it was hard to get into, so as soon as we got through the gate (30 min after park open) I sent Levi running to grab our fast passes. FOLKS, the fastpass line took 20 minutes!!!! By 10:30 they had sold out of all of the fastpasses for the day. One Hour and Thirty Minutes from park opening. The regular wait line never fell below 180 minutes . Lucky for us, something technical happened while we were riding, so we got to ride two times in a row. That's the ONLY time you'll ever hear me thankful for a ride malfunction! LOL It was super fun and in 3-D... you use a little canon popper to play carnival games... The girls had a total blast.

And FINALLY! Someone wised up and made The WorldShowcase at EPCOT fun for kids!!! We've always enjoyed the performers there... but you can only stand and watch Chinese acrobats for so long. Now they have the Kim Possible interactive game. You go to the little stations set throughout the park, pick up your cell phone "communicator" and mission and off exploring you go! You're guided to different parts in a "country" and follow the clues around until you solve your mission. Along the way, your communicator interacts with different things on and in the buildings... Our mission was in Germany, so we had coo coo clocks to watch for, singing steins, and a fun end surprise to keep us entertained. The girls LOVED it.

Abby ended up with an awful cold, so Thurs. and Fri. Levi and I split up time with Jillian so that she had something to do while Abby was stuck in bed. For a Daddy who rarely takes the girls out without me for very long, he did really well.

All in all we had a great time. We covered most of our favorites, and enjoyed the new surprises. We'll go again next year, I'm sure. But for now, I'm Disney'd out. If you have any questions about your own upcoming trip, please feel free to email me. Planning is 1/2 the fun! I'll post pics as soon as I locate my camera in all of this luggage mess!