Disney Day 4 - Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to me, I'm at Disney... We started my birthday by sleeping in. Last nights late park departure, along with the heat of our time at the water park took it's toll. I did get a cool rock slice from the boys that they found at one of the gift shops at Animal Kingdom which was cool. Melissa grabbed me a birthday button and we headed off to Animal Kingdom.

Iain loves both the Lion King and Finding Nemo shows at Animal Kingdom, and we did not get to see Lion King on our previous visit so we had to go back. We got to the park about 30 minutes before the 1 o'clock showing, and headed straight to Camp Minnie Mickey. The show was good, we sat in the elephant section. I need to mention our lunch, which we had immediatly after the show. In my opinion, the best counter service meal option at Animal Kingdom, and perhaps the entire of WDW is Flame Tree Barbaque. They server a 1/2 rack of ribs with beans and coleslaw. The ribs are really, really good and you can get a sweet and spicy bbq sauce on the side. Love eating at this place, especially since the various seating areas are nicely hidden in the trees. The eatin areas over look the waters around Asia and are covered. People often do not realize that there is seating further back which means you can often get a good seat with very little effort.

We rode on the safari ride and saw Tough to be a Bug before departing Animal Kingdom to head to the room and take a nap. There was not much napping, and the return visit was short as we needed to get to the Magic Kingdom for dinner.

Dinner was at Cinderella's Royal Table inside of the castle at the Magic Kingdom. This is something that, as far as I can remember, I have never done before. We checked in at about 7:45 for our 8:10 reservation. Shortly before, both boys fell asleep (there was not much napping earlier if you recall). The first thing you do is get a picture with Cinderella. Our pictures are pretty funny. Liam is crying and Iain is hiding his face. Oh well. The boys proceeded to fuss until we sat down at the table. Iain was not happy with the kids menu choices and wanted our steaks. Liam ate a little of everything, and a lot of sometings. Infants get complimentary pasta, but he also had his brothers fruit and mashed potatoes, some steak and a bunch of bread. Liam knows how to eat! Princesses are the characters at this dinner and we saw Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Ariel. Iain was too shy to talk to any of them, he just stared. Liam and I got our pictures take with the princesses though. Dinner ended with a birthday cake purchased by mom and the boys. We were a little full though and just blew out the candle and sang happy birthday. We stayed long enough to catch the 10pm fireworks from inside the castle. This was quite a cool experience, as many of the launchers are on buildings right next to the castle.

After dinner we road Small World (again), and ended the day riding Dumbo. I am pretty sure that was a first for all of us. It is a fun ride, but I don't think I would ever ait more than the 10 minutes we did wait. After Dumbo the park was closed and we walked out in the direction of Liberty Square. We were fortunate to find that the Main Street Electgrical parade had not gone by yet, and there was a huge unbclamied section of rope. We sat down to watch the parade. Iain loved it, especially the Pinochio float.

It was a great birthday, capped off by a suprise goody basket waiting in the rooom for me. Filled candy and rice krispie treats the center piece is a big sized stuffed Mickey. We had to get to bed as it was 1 o'clock and we needed to get up in just 4 hours...

Disney Day 3 - How to kill your kids and have fun doing it

Day three turned out pretty interesting. The plan was for Blizzard Beach in the AM followed by a long, long night at the Magic Kingdom (extra magic hours open till 2:00 am). We actually carried through with it, and were at the park until darn near 1 am.  Backing up earlier in the day though...

We headed to Blizzard Beach before the opening at 9:00. A partially successful departure had us well prepared for everything except that we forgot Liam's swim shirt. No big deal as Melissa and I had decided we wanted some as well. After some new shirts, a locker rental, and a bit of time to change we hit Tykes Peak for some kid slides and splashing. Liam was not really sure what to expect, but Iain had a blast. He road on the little kids slides a number of times in a row. We finally talked him in to leaving to ride the lazy river, which was a blast. Liam with mom (napping) and Iain with me. Mom and Liam stayed in for a second ride around, while Iain and I tried to find a "big" slide he would ride on. He would not attempt any of the really big slides, but did love Cool Runners. We road it about 15 times. Liam started to look pretty fried, so we had some lunch, changed and headed back to the room.

When we returned we rented a copy of the Power Rangers movie from the resort, and Iain watched it. Liam tried to nap, and tried to eat but instead decided the projectile vomiting would be better. Not surprisingly he felt a bit better after that.  A visit from house keeping and the carpet cleaning guy behind us and we left for the Magic Kingdom and a spot of dinner. We had reservations at Crystal Palace, but they were a bit late (8:45) and decided to just eat at Pinocchio Village Haus instead. We got a table overlooking It's A Small World with no problems and ate. Liam downed a lot of pizza crust and some green beans which seemed to make him feel better.

We went to ride Small World after dinner, and Iain did not want to go. Finally he gave us his usual drawn out OK, and we got on the ride in the very front. Short story is that he loved the ride, and that was the first of four rides. He sings along and loves to look for new things he hasn't noticed before. Liam likes it even more I think and dances, points, and talks the whole time. The evening at the MK progressed well and we ended the regular park hours on a sleepy Jungle Cruise. e followed that up with our first extra magic hours ride on Pirates. Iain was scared, but in the end decided it was not to bad.We walked over to Frontier Land to see if we could ride Big Thunder. Iain would not go on but Melissa and I did. The boys fell asleep. We walked over to Space Mountain after, because we had not ridden since the"update". It was a 30 minute wait so we used a baby swap and I waited in line. So disappointed! I am not sure they really updated much that was worthwhile, certainly not worth 30 minutes. Liam woke up while I was on the ride and fussed for mom. He was pretty warm when I got off so I stripped him down to his diaper. He thought that was fun and calmed down. It as a late night, we were all beat, but we had a good time.

Disney Fun Day Two

Our first full day of Disney was split between Disney's Animal Kingdom and our hotel at Animal Kingdom Kidani Villas. We started off with a trip to ride Dinosaur, a ride that Iain was just a hair too short for last year. No height issues this year and we headed in while mom waited with Liam. Iain didn't seem to nervous as we headed into the ride briefing room. I am not sure what he thought of the movie, but he did ask me to carry him as we left to board the ride itself. We were the first people in line and rode in the front of the time rover vehicle. No one else was in the front with us so we sat in the middle. As soon as I had him belted in he started to get a look of uncertainty on his face. Shortly after the ride started forward he told me he was scared. When the ride slowed down to look at the "nice" dinosaurs he relaxed, but it quickly jumps back to fast and furious with lots of "bad" dinosaurs. He was very brave, but I don't think he will be riding again for a while.

We followed up our harrowing experience on Dinosaur with our traditional Animal Kingdom Tusker House character breakfast. It was Liam's turn to be scared as Mickey, Daisy and Goofy (especially Goofy) came by for a visit. Iain got big hugs from all of his old friends and had a great time. Safari rides, Finding Nemo and some lunch pretty much wiped Liam out and we headed back to the room. Mom and Iain went swimming and Liam napped. After naps and pool time we went to eat at Sanaa here at Kidani Villas. It is an African themed restaurant with a touch of India to the cuisine.  The food was good, and terribly high priced. I realize now that I do not like curries, at all. Iain, who didn't nap fell asleep on the table at dinner, and cried a bit when we oke him up to leave. He was better soon enough though as we spent a few hours at the very nice resort pool to end the day. Both boys went to sleep with no fuss, and I did some laundry.  : )

Mickey and the family

Dinner naps...yum!

Great trip so far, with Iain behaving very, very well. Amazing how well he has behaved.

Disney Day One

We are taking our regular Disney vacation this week using our Disney Vacation Club points. We are staying at the Animal Kingdom Kidani Village which is our home resort.  This is our first time staying here and we are very, very impressed.

The room is just like we remember seeing the staged room when bought our membership. The master bath is huge with an enormous shower.  The decor is exactly what we wanted in a room.  Having this much space is what makes the DVC membership worthwhile. Full kitchen, a separate bedroom and two baths make things very nice.

It really doesn't hurt that I just got Liam to fall asleep while sitting on our balcony watching a couple of Giraffe and Ancole Cattle graze on the savanna below. We walked over to check out the pool, an Iain was ready to jump right in and play...

Of course we are still waiting, over four hours now, for our luggage from Magical Express.  I think perhaps we will just pick it up ourselves in the future.

The most important thing though is that we thought we would need to split our trip between Kidani and Saratoga Springs. Saratoga was nice, but we really want to stay at "home".  I have been calling twice a day for the past week trying to get a room here for the last two nights of the trip, and met with zero success. I asked at check in though and they were able to extend our stay here. I am sooooo happy about that!

Pictures from the trip can be found on Picasa. Video can be found on You Tube.

Splash Zone

Let the kids play in the splash area at the mall today. Liam fell and bumped his head and Iain...well, best to see for yourself.