Hey, Hey!!!! Today, I'm recapping our first day of our Disney trip!
Last week, we flew to Orlando, and met all of DJ's family for a huge family trip to Disney World!
You can read our 1st afternoon recap here.
Now, on to Magic Kingdom!
We were up bright and early to catch the shuttle for Magic Kingdom. Note that I did a full face of make up on this day, and it got less and less throughout the day and throughout the rest of the weekend- ha!
DJ's mom had matching shirts for all of us to wear on our first Disney day.
Hey look- DJ's showing up on my blog! That doesn't happen too often!
We arrived via shuttle and made our way in to Magic Kingdom.
Our first stop of the day was a photo in front of the castle.
DJ with his brother, sister, and mom.
And Nana, with all of her grandchildren! 6 girls and 2 boys :)
And we took the chance to have a family photo taken too!
Per Nana's request, we all rode "Small World" together before heading off for our own Fast Passes and rides.
Right after we finished Small World, we had a Fast Pass for Peter Pan's Flight. We missed this ride the last time we were at Disney because the line was insanely long and we didn't have a pass for it. This time, I made sure to get a Fast Pass so we wouldn't miss out! Gretchen absolutely loved it, because she's been obsessed with Peter Pan since her Musical Theater class this year.
After Peter Pan's Flight, Adalyn requested that we ride the horses. So, we headed to the carousel.
This girl loves a good carousel!
When we were finished riding the horses, we noticed that Princess Elena was available to meet and the line was about a 20 minute wait. The girls had requested to see her, so we made the detour over to meet Elena of Avalor and Cinderella.
Elena signed our autograph book (we've used the same book on all three of our Disney trips so we have a ton of signatures, and lots of repeats!)
And then Adalyn requested that Elena, draw a picture for her in our book.
So, Elena did!
After a group hug, the girls headed over to meet Cinderella.
Cinderella talked to the girls about their stickers, which just so happened to be a sticker of Cinderella herself, signed our book, and then took some photos.
My mother in law has a yearly pass to Disney World, so she has the Memory Maker available! We were able to link all of our photos to her account! Had we not have been able to, I was planning on purchasing the package this time around, since we didn't want to carry around our nice camera, and we didn't purchase the Memory Maker on our last trips.
After our princess visit, we headed to ride The Little Mermaid ride, and Gretchen and I took advantage of another photo op while waiting for DJ to park the stroller.
And then we took the girls to meet Ariel.
I don't think Adalyn made Ariel draw her a picture!
We had a quick photo op in front of Gaston's Tavern.
And then headed to meet the family for our Fast Pass for Splash Mountain. We all had a Fast Pass for this ride, but we decided to split our group in to two. Technically, Adalyn was tall enough to ride, but she was a little afraid, and knowing that there weren't seatbelts, and she's so tiny (she's barely 30 pounds) we opted to not put her on the ride. But, Megan was terrified! Ha! Do you spot her? She declared it "the worst ride ever."
We were all able to ride the Magic Carpets together, and then it was lunch time!
We had lunch reservations at Crystal Palace, and the food didn't disappoint. It was a buffet style, and we were all starving! I ended up with tilapia, salad (not pictured), and lots of sides! And afterwards, I sampled lots of the desserts!
Addy Pearl was ready for food!
After lunch, we met all of the Winnie the Pooh characters.
My kids have never really watched Winnie the Pooh, so they weren't really sure who all of the characters were, but they still loved meeting them.
We brought along a picture mat to have all of the characters sign. We used this same mat on our Disney Cruise, but we had plenty of room for more characters, so we took it with us, and I'll eventually print and frame one of our photos from the trip. It was a fun spin on the autograph book, even though we took that along with us too!
I was impressed with the foliage in the restaurant.
After lunch, we rode Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (this was another Fast Pass), and then we all split up again.
All of the little girls headed to Enchanted Tales with Belle. This was our first time to do this, and the girls loved it! Gretchen is also obsessed with Belle right now, and all of the kids were able to have a part in the show. Megan was the wardrobe.
Gretchen was a dish.
After the show, Belle greeted all of the children and gave them each a bookmark.
And a Disney photographer was there to take photos.
We split up again, and I took the girls back to Belle's little village and Gretchen and Adalyn picked out souvenirs. (Gretchen bought a book, and I'm not at all surprised!)
By this time, it was around 3ish, and it was hot! The lines were long and I was getting tired. We bought some ice cream, took some photos....
and then headed to the castle for a Mickey and friends performance.
Addy and Emmie had their picture taken with their matching mouse ears.
We watched the show, but Adalyn had the best view of all.....
The photo above and below were captured by the Disney photographer, and I just love them!
After the show, we decided that we needed to just take it easy, so we went on a train ride around the park.
Gretchen read her book while we waited for the train.
After our train ride, we were ready to go. It was just so hot!
Bye, bye Magic Kingdom!!!!
We headed to the Polynesian Resort for a cool drink and the DJ's mom had a huge surprise for us!
Pirates and Pals Night!!!!!
So, I have never heard of this opportunity before, but we had so much fun, and I'd recommend it to everyone!
You have to reserve this in advance, but you meet at the Contemporary Resort for a pirate night and cruise.
You're ushered in to a room with all of the cotton candy, chocolate, cake, and ice cream you could eat! The kids went crazy grabbing food.
And we were just hot and sweaty and trying to survive!
Captain Hook and Smee were there, and we were able to get autographs and pictures.
And we took a family photo too.
My girls are some fierce pirates!
Right before sunset, we headed down to the lake and boarded our boat.
And with a group of 15, most people probably weren't excited to be on our boat! Ha! We were loud and excited! Our pirate leader did a great job of getting everyone on the boat interacting, singing along, and answering trivia questions.
At sunset, we were anchored in the lake with the perfect view of the Magic Kingdom firework show!
After the fireworks, we made our way back to the Contemporary Resort to dock, and guess who was there????
Peter Pan!
Gretchen was SO excited!!! She wants to find Neverland and live there and is determined to never grow up!
Pirates & Pals night was so much fun and such a big surprise!
Afterwards, we headed back to the resort and went right to bed! We were exhausted!
