Disney - Day 4

On Wednesday, we went to Hollywood Studios. Like all days, we had great weather. We really lucked out all week. No rain and perfect temps.

On the bus to Hollywood Studios

We started off by watching the Muppet 3D show. It was cute and had some similar special effects like the other 3D show we'd seen.

Just a random snowman on the street

Then, we watched the Beauty and the Beast show. The girls liked this one a lot. Morgan declared her love for the Beast after this and would say her favorite character was Beast all the time after this show. :)

We stopped for a snack and some pictures while we waited for the next Frozen Sing Along show.

Yep, there is a Frozen Sing Along... and it was really fun! They show parts of the movie with the songs along with words at the bottom like karaoke. The girls wouldn't let me sing. Boo! The best part was that it snowed on us a few times and a lot at the end of the show. We all had fun!

We had lunch at Hollywood & Vine (Minnie's Seasonal Buffet). This was one of the best buffets and we got to meet a lot of characters all dressed in their holiday outfits. The girls thought they were pretty funny joking around with Donald Duck. They kept calling him Daisy and he acted all mad and stomped his feet. Then he took a picture covering their faces.

Avery was really glad we finally got to meet Daisy. She wasn't at Chef Mickey's and Avery was disappointed.

 

We had some downtime at the hotel and then went out to play in the sandy beach area. There was a newly married couple riding around in a lighted Cinderella style carriage.

That night, we had dinner at 'Ohana at the Polynesian resort. No characters at this meal, but they have a coconut race for the kiddos. They each got a broom and coconut and had to push it around the floor. The food was pretty good and not a buffet (so that's a plus!). The girls are really afraid of fireworks, so the only way we can watch fireworks is indoors or really far away. So, when we saw that the MK fireworks were early this night and we could see them from our table at 'Ohana, we were all pretty happy. Indoors and far away! Score! It was a great way to finish off the night.

Disney - Day 3

Tuesday morning started off with breakfast on the balcony (as did the rest of the mornings!) The girls would discuss the most random stuff and I got such a kick out of listening to them. They also pretended like I was their waitress and they would order me around. I didn't get such a kick out of that... ha!

We spent most of Tuesday morning at our hotel swimming. Grandma Ruth drove over from her house to visit us as well, which was really nice! She brought us Christmas cookies and banana bread which were a big hit the rest of the week! We had lunch with her outside at the pool bar/restaurant. There were two pools and a kids' play area. One pool was huge and had a large shallow end with fountains. The other pool had a waterfall and water slide. Morgan went down the water slide a few times, but Avery wouldn't do it. No surprise there. The kids' play area was Alice in Wonderland themed and had a big bucket of water that would dump out every minute or so.

The girls were exhausted after all the swimming, so they took a snooze. We headed back to MK that night for the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. Disney closes the park down and only people who bought tickets for the party are allowed in. There are no FP's allowed, but the lines are shorter since there are less people in the park.

We started out at the Peter Pan ride. We got up to the front of the line and Morgan freaked out about seeing Captain Hook. This would be a recurring theme with her. She knew the story of the rides and if there was a scary villain, she didn't want to ride. Ugh. So, after she bailed on the ride, Avery wasn't so sure about going, so she she bailed as well. We ended up riding the carousel again. Seriously, the girls love carousels, but we can do that at the zoo! They didn't care, though.

After the Carousel, we rode It's a Small World. This was right up Morgan's alley. No scary stuff in this ride! Every corner we'd go around, she would cover her ears worried that something spooky was going to happen, though.

After that ride, we walked over to the Dumbo ride. But the girls were a little leery of going up in the air. So, we skipped it. Yep. Ugh. But, after that Morgan saw the Barnstormer (a small roller coaster) and just had to ride on it. We asked her a few times if she really wanted to. Matt even explained to her that if she didn't want to ride Dumbo because she thought it was too scary, she would not like the Barnstormer. She insisted. Avery and I waited at the exit. A little while later, out comes Matt carrying a hysterical Morgan. Oy! She said she hated it. But of course, later she said it was "so much fun" and asked to ride it again. Um, a big nope on that one!

After we got her calmed down, we went to meet Tiana and Rapunzel. Morgan talked Rapunzel's ear off. And she tried to lift up Tiana's dress for some reason. I guess because it was so full. She did think Tiana's dress should have been darker green.

We had dinner at the Crystal Palace, which is a Winnie the Pooh themed restaurant. We had a seat at the window, so we could see the castle. The characters came around, except for Tigger. We never got to "meet" him. The restaurant does a character parade and all the kids walk around the restaurant. Avery was too shy to do it at first, but Eoyore came over to our table and grabbed her hand and took her with him. She decide Eoyore was her new favorite character!

After dinner, we watched the light show on the castle from outside the restaurant.

Afterwards, the girls met Santa.

A few family pictures from the party...

When we got back to the hotel, the girls wanted to get our autographs (they were really loving the autograph books!). So, Matt signed it "Prince Daddy". They loved it!

Disney - Day 2

On Monday, we spent the morning at Magic Kingdom. I had Fast Passes for a few things I thought the girls would like.

First, we met Cinderella and Elena of Avalor. Morgan asked Cinderella where her glass slippers were.  Ha!

 

While we were waiting for our next FP, we decided to ride the carousel. The girls just love the carousel at the zoo, so they were totally jazzed about this carousel.

We had some time to kill before our next FP and there was no wait for the Little Mermaid ride, so we checked that out. Morgan was really scared of Ursula, but for the most part they loved the ride.

After that we had a FP for the Winnie the Pooh ride. We let the girls sit in the front together and Matt and I sat in the back. That ride is really jerky and bumpy. The girls liked it, though.

After that, we watched the Mickey Philharmagic show. It's a really cool 3D show with some fun special effects - like water droplets on you when they throw water on the screen and wind when you are going through the tornado. The girls kept trying to grab the 3D stuff in front of them. :)

Next, we had a FP for the TomorrowLand speedway. The kids loved being able to drive the cars on their own. It took a little bit to get them used to how to use the steering wheel without us constantly crashing into the center guide bar. By the end, Morgan had it down!

After that, we took the boat back to our hotel for some lunch and downtime.

Monday night, we headed to Epcot for dinner. We stopped off at the Finding Nemo ride first and then checked out the aquarium. The girls really liked this a lot and enjoyed seeing all the fish swimming around.

We had dinner at the Coral Reef restaurant. We had a great seat where we could watch the fish swimming by in the aquarium. Avery declared this place her favorite restaurant and said the mac-n-cheese was the best she's ever eaten. Morgan tried fish and chips for the first time and declared is the "best chicken". Ha!

On the way out of Epcot that night, we found these great spots where the ground lit up. The girls had so much fun chasing the lights around as they turned off and on.