"Travel Tuesdays"...Disney Day 7

Oh, Disney Day 7...you were bittersweet. It was such a fun day, but it was also our last day. We decided before we even got to the park that day that we would skip Eliana's nap. We wanted as much park time as possible since it was the last day. If you know me and my child, this is kind of a big deal. Eliana is a super sweet, hilarious girl. Skip naptime though, and shoo mercy. Let's just say, the girl needs her nap. So...I was a little nervous about how this day would play out. All in all though, it went well as you'll see from the pictures below.

Eliana had no idea she would actually get to meet Elsa and Anna on this trip. Our Fastpasses were for the very last day, so we just kept quiet about it. Oh, and yes, I would highly recommend getting Fastpasses for this if your kid wants to meet them. 

On the teacups!

We got my mom on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!

And did I mention that Disney's Parent Swap is fabulous? Ask me about it if you need info on how to use it to its full potential.

We ended up getting a last minute late lunch reservation at Liberty Tree Tavern. The food was delicious! This was on my "Maybe" list for reservations, so I never thought too much about it. Some of us had the pot roast and some of us had the turkey. They were both fantastic! The plan was to finish eating and then walk outside to see the parade around 3:00. 

TIP: However, and this is important to know, if there's a chance of bad weather Disney may move up the time of the parade. We were still in the restaurant before 3:00, and we started hearing what sounded like the parade. Thankfully, Ellie and my mom were done eating so they headed outside to see. The rest of us caught up to them a few minutes later, and I'm glad we did. It was such a fun parade!

Check out that dragon. Spooky.

No trip to Disney would be complete without a ride on the Jungle Cruise, and since it was December, we got to see the Jingle Cruise.

Did I mention it was a no-nap day? That requires 2 pumpkin spice lattes. Ok, that's not really true. Here's what happened.

TIP: If you're on the dining plan you can use a snack credit for any drink at Starbucks. ANY DRINK.  ANY SIZE. It also includes any additional items you want in your drink...including an extra shot of espresso.  

I, of course, wanted to make full use of my snack credit, so I added an extra shot of espresso to my pumpkin spice latte. They forgot to add it to the first one, but they gave it to me anyway. Thus, 2 pumpkin spice lattes and a very happy Mommy. The only trouble was that we couldn't take them on any of the rides, so I had to drink them pretty quickly, and I like to savor my coffee.

She's so cute.

No really...look at those curls.

And then, Ellie decided she wanted to ride her first roller coaster. I'll be honest. This is a kid's coaster, but it isn't little. It isn't like the coaster at your local fair. Tanner and I rode it earlier in the week during one of the times we went back to the park during Extra Magic Hours, and neither of us really thought she would ride it. When she said she wanted to, we decided to let her because it was the last day, and it wouldn't cause her to freak out about riding anything for the rest of the trip.

She sat super still and looked scared out of her mind during the entire ride, but when it was over, she said, "Why was it so short?"

After that we headed over to Epcot for dinner at Teppan Edo. If you look in the corner of this picture, you'll see that these restaurants freak out my child.

I highly recommend Teppan Edo! It is delicious!

Filet Mignon!

So I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but Eliana does not fall asleep in her stroller...or anywhere that isn't a bed. It took 7 days at Disney plus no nap that day for this to happen. 

I'm pretty sure we all could have fallen asleep at that point.

What a fun vacation! When can we go back????

Want to plan a fun vacation to Disney (or anywhere)? Chat with me and let me help.

"Travel Tuesdays"...Disney Day 6

It's time for a post about Day 6 of our Disney Vacation! This was probably the most low-key day that we had (minus me sprinting from the car to the FastPass Kiosk in Hollywood Studios because my app told me there were still some Fastpasses available for Fantasmic). More on that later.

We started this day in Epcot, and ended in Hollywood Studios. We rode Test Track and Mission Space: Orange first. Test Track was a lot of fun!
Tip: Use the Single Rider Line if you don't mind being separated. We almost walked right on.

Test Track was a lot of fun for me partly because of the older man sitting next to me. He made car noises the entire time and pretended like he was shifting gears and steering. 

While we were busy riding rides, someone decided she needed a Minnie hat to match her Minnie sunglasses.

We rode several other things, and then it was time for our lunch reservation at San Angel Inn. 

 See that menu? See the item that says Pollo a las Rajas? Oh my... it was so incredibly good. In fact, I came home and found a recipe for it and made it.

We walked around a little bit more, but by then it was time to head back for a certain little girl's nap.

Once she woke up it was time to head over to Hollywood Studios. We were hoping to catch the first Fantasmic show, ride the Tower of Terror again, see the Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights, and whatever else we could squeeze in. 

Everything I read said that you basically have to get in line for Fantasmic about an hour before the show. This did not sound like fun with a toddler. While we were in the car I looked on my phone and saw that there were still some Fastpasses available. We had already used our Fastpasses for the day, so the only way to get them was to go to the kiosk. The trams at Hollywood Studios take a lot of time because they wait for it to fill up, then they go through a long safety speech twice (once in English and once in Spanish), and finally they head to the park. At the time I thought the kiosk was at the front of the park, so I decided to hurry and jog to it instead of waiting on the tram. The rest of the group rode the tram. I forgot to mention that I don't run...ever. I hate running. I also had a sinus infection and bronchitis at the time. This wasn't my best decision. I got to the front of the park and asked where the kiosk was. Turns out it wasn't at the front, it was now closer to the middle of the park. I took off running again. Thankfully, there were still Fastpasses available by the time I got there. Unfortunately, even though our accounts were linked, the kiosk messed up and wouldn't let me add some of our group's Fastpasses. That meant I had to wait until I had their MagicBands. Goodness. We finally all had our Fastpasses, and we didn't have to wait in line for an hour. 

We got to use that time riding Tower of Terror instead! Seriously, even if you don't like drop rides, please try this one. It is so much fun! We're in the top left of this photo.

After that we headed over to see Fantasmic. You need to make it a point to see this show while you're at Disney! It has just about every Disney character you can think of in it, fireworks, water elements, and more. It is really, really neat!

We ended the night checking out the Osborne Family Spectacle of Lights. This is an amazing Christmas light presentation. 

Anyone recognize the creature in the window?

"Travel Tuesdays"... Disney World Day 2

Day 2 of our trip to Walt Disney World was definitely my favorite. That's not to say that the other days were bad, it's just that there were at least 3 really, really fantastic things about this day. 1) Eliana still had no clue that we were near Cinderella's Castle. For those of you who don't know, she had been asking to go to Cinderella's castle since she was old enough to talk. Every time a Disney show or movie came on that showed the castle, she asked to go. She even started saying, "I want to go there sometime, but it's too far away. Maybe on Tuesday or Friday." We even managed to keep her from seeing it when we had a window seat at Chef Mickey's the night before with a beautiful view of the castle. When you first walk into the Magic Kingdom, you still can't see the castle. Below are the series of pictures that we took showing Eliana's expressions once she figured out where we were. She literally said, "It's Cinderella's Castle. It's Cinderella's Castle! IT'S CINDERELLA'S CASTLE!" It was if she couldn't believe we were finally there. We caught the moment on video, but I'm still waiting for my sweet hubby to edit it for me.

"Hey, Ellie, what's that?"

"It's Cinderella's Castle."

"It's Cinderella's Castle!"

"It's CINDERELLA'S CASTLE!!!"

"Can we go there?"

At this point, we let her out of her stroller and told her to run. Those tiny little legs ran all the way from the front of Main St. to the castle. This is not a short distance. We were impressed!

Which brings me to #2 on my list of why this day was so fantastic. Eliana got to meet the first set of princesses for the trip (Cinderella and Rapunzel). She was in awe, and Mommy and Daddy may have teared up a bit (which may or may not be an understatement).

We quickly discovered that Eliana's favorite ride was actually the Carousel. 

Enchanted Tales with Belle was quite neat, but the magical mirror at the beginning scared Ellie, so she was on edge the rest of the time.

Riding the Winnie the Pooh ride. 

Lunch at Be Our Guest was delicious! Here's a tip...keep up-to-date with what the lunch policy is for this restaurant before your trip. Sometimes you can wait in stand-by or you can have a FastPass, sometimes you have to have a FastPass, and you can even place your order ahead of time. Tip: Place your food order ahead of time! We didn't, but the line was much shorter for those that did. Most of the time you can try to get FastPasses for lunch 28 days before your intended visit date. This FastPass doesn't count against your other 3. Oh, and another tip: "Try the grey stuff, it's delicious. Don't believe me, ask the dishes!" Seriously though, it's good stuff.

The child loved the Carousel. 

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the #3 reason why this day was so fantastic. We ate dinner at O'Hana, which was absolutely our favorite meal of the entire trip! O'Hana is located at the Polynesian Resort, and reservations are very hard to come by (if you want to go be sure to book it 180 days before the start of your trip). We tried to find an open reservation to eat there again during our trip (yes, it was that good), but we never got them. 

O'Hana is a family-style restaurant meaning they bring big portions of the appetizers and sides for everyone at your table to split. The chicken wing appetizer and noodles were unbelievably good! They carry around big skewers of various meats for you to eat as much of as you want. Words cannot describe this food. It was so delicious! If you like bread pudding, they serve a banana bread pudding which is apparently a crowd favorite (too bad for me I don't like bread pudding at all, but every one else in our party loved it!). Needless to say, Tanner has already said that our next trip will consist of multiple O'Hana trips (if we can snag reservations). 

Thankfully, my mom was with us to help watch Eliana. Mommy & Daddy got to sneak out the night before during Extra Magic Hours (until 2 AM) for Daddy's first time to the Magic Kingdom! If you have kids, and you have a babysitter, this was absolutely the best time to ride things. We didn't have to wait for anything except Peter Pan! It gave us a chance to ride things we knew Ellie wouldn't want to ride, so we had more time to do the things she wanted to do. It also gave us a chance to ride some of the rides we wanted to check out to see if they might scare her. Seriously, if you can go during these late night hours, definitely try to do it!