WandaMae & Family - September 2007

The cast: MIL (63), FIL (62), dh (36), me (37), dd (9), ds (6), and twin ds' (5)
First time visit for the kids and I to WDW

DAY 1:

This is it! Finally our trip to Disney has arrived! The adults woke up at 5 and got ready to leave. Woke kids up at 5:30 and got them dressed and then set them at the table for a quick breakfast of snacks (good going mom!). They saw their envelopes and dumped all the puzzle pieces out and tried to put them all together. Of course Micah and Nathaniel had to have help, but Emily and Jarod got theirs together pretty easily. So Emily reads hers and then looks up with an expression of ?HUH? Hers was an invitation from Cinderella to come and eat dinner with her tonight at 7:30. The boys were all from Mickey Mouse to come and visit him at his "World". Once we explain that we are leaving "RIGHT NOW" for WDW, the cheers commenced and the excitement builds.

We leave at 6am to head down to our friend who will drive us to the airport and keep our Suburban for the week. Got there just a couple of minutes before 7, but he was ready and didn't keep our party waiting for long. Got to the airport and unpacked and the HH terminal sure has changed in the last few years! The line to check in was short, so there wasn't a wait for that and just like that our luggage was off and we were ready to go to the gate to wait for the plane. I of course, being the maker of lists and piles that I am, had a ton of activities for them to do in their backpacks. So the kids were well occupied during our short wait at the gate. Once on the plane, then the boredom started. I had borrowed a dvd player that Emily and Jarod watched Cinderella 2 on the plane with. Nathaniel and Micah colored and played games with me. Mark and Gale got the luxury of sitting across the aisle from us.

Get to Orlando at 1'ish and had an extremely long wait for the Magical Express Bus to take us to our Resort. Getting a bit worried, because we have a photo shoot scheduled at the Grand Floridian Resort for 4pm. Finally get to our resort about 3, Mark and Gale went to check us in while I took Emily to the bathroom to change and start getting ready for our shoot. Got our room and so Emily and I finished up in the bathroom and went to look for our room. Got totally lost! Finally made it to our room and finished getting the boys dressed and then grabbed my makeup kit to do that once we got to the Grand Floridian. We ended up being 20 minutes late. Jarod of course charmed the girls doing the shoot and we ended up with their e-mail addresses because he took pictures of them and they would like us to send them to them to see.

Then we had a couple of hours until our 7:30 seating for dinner with Cinderella. Walked around the resort and took a couple of monorail rides. The kids got the chance to ride up front with the driver. They liked that. Got back and checked in early for dinner. Glad we did too, because by the time we finished, it wasn't much time until the Electric water parade started. But first dinner. Oh my how fabulous! The kid's menu had prime rib on it, so Jarod got that and it spoiled him for the rest of the week. The kid didn't eat hardly anything after that wonderful meal. The food was just scrumptious! And the dessert platter was good as well. Plenty of interaction with the characters. Suzy the mouse took a liking to Micah and kept hugging and kissing him. He of course was pretending he didn't like it, which made her do it all the more. Now he says that she is his favorite character. We got Cinderella, Prince Charming, Fairy Godmother, Suzy and Perla the mice's autographs and pictures.

After dinner, we went out to the beach to find a spot for the Electric water Parade and to watch the Wishes fireworks over the castle. Was on the wrong side of the resort, so we walked all the way around to the other side and decided to sit on the pier and watch while waiting for the boat to shuttle us back to the Magic Kingdom to catch our bus. It was very nice, and a wonderful way to end our first day at Walt Disney World.

Pictures of the kids' expression and joyfulness at learning of the trip are on here.

Page: 1, 2, 3, 4