DISNEYWORLD
Magic Kingdom Animal Kingdom Hollywood Studios EPCOT 10 days of magic!
Magical. Is that too cliché
of a word to use to describe DisneyWorld?
I’m not usually they type to fall into commercialized splendor, but this
place was simply in a word: magical!
Being able to experience it with Jadeyn was all the more special!
Nathan – We were lucky enough to have Jadeyn’s cousin Nathan
accompany us on this amazing trip!
Jadeyn simply adores him and we all get along so well together. AND, it was Nathan’s 16th
Birthday!!! What a way to
celebrate. It worked out perfectly
having four people instead of three: nobody had to ride alone and we could all
trade off on the big rides. Nathan even
figured out the trick of combining the fast passes with child swap and made the
big rides go even faster.
Accommodations: We stayed at the Grand Floridian Resort and
wow, was it ever luxurious. Every detail
was perfect. It was created to be a
1920s hotel and I totally felt like I had walked into Somewhere In Time when I
saw that even all the workers were in character. The Bell Boys wore peach and white three piece
suits with knickers style pants, chaps ??? on their white patent leather shoes,
fedoras or golf hats and some of them even wore white gloves. The cleaning and room service people wore similar
colors: peach dresses and white aprons.
Behind the front desk were hundreds of the room key slots from the old
days and upon checkout, they even gave us a couple of the old keys!
Every floor was made of marble with intricate
swirls and designs in the marble including Goofy, Mickey, Tinkerbell and all
the rest! Huge fresh bouquets on every
table! Not to mention the building itself!
The main lobby ceiling was 6 stories up to huge chandeliers and grandeur. A nine piece band was playing on a few nights
we got home late, and on other nights the grand piano was in full swing! The room linens were piled up in white
baskets outside each room waiting for the maids to make the beds. The wall paper and carpet had hidden mickeys. They even rolled the towels into a Mickey on
our bed!! We bought a re-fillable mug and every morning enjoyed piping hot hot
cholcolate!!! And in the afternoons, we enjoyed sodas including Nathans concoction of a little of every flavor! Jadeyn discovered that he can still get
liquid when drinking out of 10 straws at the same time! We could take the boat, monorail or bus to
the parks right from our hotel. We did spend one afternoon in the pool at the
hotel and had a blast on the waterslide and the kid’s play area.
DISNEYQUEST When we landed on our first night, we just
couldn’t let a minute of vacation go to waste and headed straight for Downtown
Disney to see what it had to offer.
Incredible to see larger than life sized statues made completely out of
LEGOS! Shops galore and food everywhere! We ate at Planet Hollywood and then hit
DisneyQuest a five story arcade! They
had tons of the standard video arcades plus some really sweet ones like a 3D
cannon pirate shoot, a create-your-own-coaster that you then got to test out in
a simulator, a blow-up raft with motion sensor that really responded to your
motion sensor paddles as you floated down a dangerous river!! We happened to choose the exact week of a massive
Quinceanera celebration and there were literally about 100+ 15 year old girls
from South America, also a dance and cheer leading competition of hundreds of
more girls!!! So in any given line, we
had girls galore. It was mostly fine,
but in the small space of DinseyQuest, it was kinda insane! Oh, and Jadeyn got to create a
Build-A-Dinosaur at a Build-A-Bear workshop!
So cool to see him so excited to pick out the body and the heart and to
even brush its fur after “Devon Brachy Jr” was created!
The Jedi Training Experience
On our first day in Hollywood Studios we rushed as fast as
we could to sign Jadeyn up for the Jedi Training. When his group of kids met, they all gathered
around a Star Wars expert and were grilled on Star Wars Trivia. It was shocking to hear just how well these
little guys knew their Star Wars. With
Jadeyn right in the middle of them all, they donned their Padawan robes and
marched over to Star Tours to recite their oaths and receive their training light
sabers. Jadeyn was very serious about
his training and the trainer was hilarious as he taught them all the right
moves…then suddenly..bum, bum, bum, bum-a-bum… out comes Darth Vader for a
challenge. Each Padawan got to match
their skills with the great rival. And
in the end, they were victorious and banished Darth Vader and his Storm
Troopers. They received a certificate
when they completed their training as well.
Here’s where Jadeyn finally broke the news to us: “You know mom, I already have the Force. I
already know how to use it!” We agreed with him and he then began to adamantly
repeat it like we didn’t believe him! He
actually got quite upset, but we reassured him that now at least we have the
paperwork to prove it!! What a sweet experience!
COASTERS
Goofy’s BarnStormer Railroad. Jadeyn’s first coaster at Disney was Barn
Stormer. Perfectly decorated to match
Goofy’s personality, Jadeyn wanted to go again and again! If you look really closely in this picture you
can see Jadeyn nestled right in the middle!
Thunder Mountain - By far one of our favorite of the week mainly because we were able to share the excitement with Jadeyn! We all held our hands up every minute and let the coaster slam us from side to side as we hollered and laughed!! On one of the nights, we went on it 5 times in a row during the fireworks. It was quite exhilarating to have the thrill of the hills, the wind in your hair and the fireworks exploding above in the night sky!!
CHARACTERS
Character Breakfast.
We reserved breakfast at Chef Mickey’s to take advantage of some one on
one time with some of our favorite characters.
We enjoyed a wonderful buffet breakfast and suddenly out came Mickey,
Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto!! They
visited each individual table and spent some time with each child and posed for
a picture! Wow! Jadeyn sat with his back to the dining room
and his eyes simply lit up each time a giant four fingered glove touched his
shoulder! Goofy is his very
favorite! This shows just how much
Disney wants to make everything a special moment: we told our waiter that we
wished we had had more time with Goofy and she said she would make it
happen. A few minutes later, Goofy comes
lumbering out of the kitchen with a broom in hand to “sweep up” after the
guests and wanders straight to our table to see Jadeyn! Pretty special!
Meeting Belle.
Belle is my favorite
of the Disney Princesses (except now that Princess Lea is a Disney Princess, I
may need to reevaluate!) She is level
headed, reads a lot and has long fingernails!!
We decided to see what story time with Belle was all about. When we got to the head of the line we joined
about 30 other people in a room where a magic mirror spoke to us and then
somehow (I still can’t figure out how) we walked right through that mirror into
a living room with a warm fire place to await Belle. Each of the kids got to play the parts of the
teacup or the beast. Jadeyn was a salt
shaker. When they asked him to shake, he
shook with all him might to be part of the kitchenware. When Belle entered, it was truly
magical. I think we were all in awe and
completely taken by her. She welcomed us
in and chatted with us, smiled and had all the perfect princess hand motions
and everything! Then she spent some time
with each individual child and posed for photos. Jadeyn was completely taken by her. She ever leaded down and gave him a kiss on
the forehead!
The new Be Our Guest Restaurant was so cool! It was laid out just like the beast’s castle;
so beautiful. We ordered on computer
screens and then in a glass encased serving tray our food was wheeled out to
us. And it was devine!
Arial. For a boy who
has been pretty much obsessed with mermaids for the better part of his life, we
thought for sure Jadeyn would be ecstatic to meet Arial. Well, not the case. He suddenly got all shy, but the pictures
sure were cute. She was really sweet and
got him talking about all his favorite pirates!
EPCOT was a unique park.
It really seemed to be two parks combined: one side with rides and
educational science type stuff, and the other all cultural education about
quite a few different countries. We
completely enjoued both sides. TEST
TRACK was Jadeyn’s favorite! You could
build your own race car: engine, power, tires, decals, economy vs gas guzzler,
etc. Then…you got to test it out on the
track!! You tested it out in all weather
conditions and compared its performance with other cars on the track, even a
very fast high speed test outdoors blasting out in the sun! We wanted to do that one over and over again!
Japan – In Japan we treated ourselves to Teppen Edo’s where
the Japanese chef prepares the food right on the skillet at our table! We loved the onion volcano and the flipping
of the food and utensils! The food was
pretty good as well, but we had to use the “rubber-band assisted” chop sticks!!
MISSION Space- now that was a unique ride!! You could choose to be on the non-intense side or
the extreme side, so of course we chose extreme. Spinning with centrifugal force, they gave
you the impression that you were blasting off on a space mission! All you could do was holler and hope that your
skin stayed on your face as it pulled down!
Me and Nathan handled it just fine, Kevin on the other hand said once
was enough.
Canada- we treated ourselves to dinner at Le Cellier
restaurant. Its pretty hard to describe
just how amazing the food was at eat of these restaurants. The surprising thing was just how intense
and different each of the flavors were.
So powerful! And we ate dishes
that we would hardly ever have the opportunity to try. Nathan got to eat swordfish, grouper and
mussels for the first time!! And yes, we
took pictures of most of the dishes we ordered because they were just so dang
pretty!
CHINA – In both China and Canada there was a 360 degree video
presentation on massive screens that encircled the audience. Incredible!
We also got to watch some Chinese acrobats perform, but Jadeyn was more
interested in smashing little flying ants that were plaguing him! One of the performers got such a kick out of
Jadeyn since we were sitting on the sidewalk at the very front!
CROPS – One extremely surprising ride at EPCOT was a water
tour through the greenhouses to see all the different plants and crops that
they are engineering to perform better or to grow in different
circumstances. To see a single zucchini “tree”
branch out into about 15 different pots was quite amazing!
HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
50s Diner – complete with a bossy waiter who insisted that
all the children behave and no talking back or elbows on the table. Eat all your meatloaf and wait to be
excused!! Old television in the corner
and all the furniture straight out of the 50s.
But the best moment was when Jadeyn kinda lost it because he was too
hungry and he started to cry. The waiter hadn’t even had time to introduce himself
yet and too Jadeyn by the hand, straight back into the kitchen and poured him a
huge mug of rootbeer!!
A completely unique 'coaster' experience. We've never been on a ride quite like this one. Tha ambiance while waiting in line is creepy and perfectly sinister topped off by the Twilight Zone narrative. But the unexpected drops are the best!!! All in all, we probably went on it seven times!! In the picture below, note the wait time!!
Lights Camera Action was a sweet live stunt car show! Wow, could those vehicles ever maneuver! We enjoyed it so much we watched it
twice!! Plus a fun cameo of Lightning
McQueen!
Aerosmith – pretty awesome indoor coaster!! Yup, we went on it over and over!
ANIMAL KINGDOM
I love this park!!!! The greenery, flowers and shear beauty is astounding. I never get tired of the massive animal tree in the middle. We went on the safari twice and loved every minute.
Dinosaur – Jadeyn was pretty excited to be big enough to go
on this “scary” ride. He loves dinosaurs
so we figured he’d love it. We were
right! We catapulted back through time
on our tome machine and explored all the wondrous dinosaurs meandering through
the lush greenery. We even go t stuck in
the Jurassic time for quite awhile when the ride broke down on our second trip
through! We got to see all the inner
workings of this dark ride in full floodlight!
Lion King – on our last day when we were “reviewing our
favorites” and catching all the things we wanted to do again, we went to Animal Kingdom again to watch the production
of the Lion King. Wow! The costumes were so colorful and the singing
was great. Trapeze, dancers, stilt
walkers, all swirling and involving the crowd!
Finding Nemo. Nothing
like seeing a light hearted musical at Disney and end up with tears in your
eyes! Last time we took Jadeyn to the
Animal Kingdom (it was a side trip to our last SeaWorld trip) we watched this
musical with our sweet little two year
old wiggling all over our laps. The
music is so sweet and the production so well done, that yup, a tear or two
fell. Happened again this time!! If you don’t know the music, check it out on
YouTube. Very touching!
Desserts – Our two favorite desserts in all four parks were
the cupcakes from Sweet Rolls and the cinnamon rolls from Gaston’s
Tavern! We ate twice at each place! The cupcakes were so huge and so rich that
between the four of us we could barely finish three!! And the cinnamon rolls were massive and
delicious and we washed them down with some amazing cider. I just have to saw that Gaston’s was
something special! He indeed does use
antlers in all of his decorating. He
showed up for autographs once while we were eating and it was no surprise that
there wasn’t a single kid in the line: it was all twitterpated adult females
swooning over him!!
The Brown Derby
Fireworks!
Fireworks! There’s not much that
can compare with the way Disney does fireworks!
Wow! Every night it was spectacular, but the part that really took my
breath away was when they somehow projected amazing imaging right on the castle
walls. Scenes from all the movies,
songs, designs…its hard to explain it well enough to do it justice!
