NC Christensen Family Blog: Walt Disney World 2012

We just got back from our Walt Disney World trip a couple of weeks ago, which was awesome, as you can imagine, and completely magical. Which makes sense, cause it's Disney World, and all.

One really nice thing is that we stayed in the "cabins" at Walt Disney World (they are actually trailers, with logs nailed around the outside, but it was still very nice) and you could park right in front of your individual cabin. Plus there was a little kitchen, a separate bedroom, and a Murphy-bed in the living room that Jeff and I used, so we had more space to spread out, compared to a regular hotel room.

We booked our trip through AAA, and one of our perks was a "diamond" parking pass, so we got to park really close to the entrances of the parks. Compared with waiting for the buses, wrestling our stroller onto the bus, and then riding the bus with a ton of people, and wrestling our stroller off the bus, etc. this was a dream come true! We just walked out of our cabin, got in the car, drove to the park, went to our special little parking area, and walked in. Most of the time it only took around 15 minutes (and hardly ever more than a 1/2 hour) to get from our front door to being inside the parks.

Unfortunately, I was already pretty wiped out with fun activities because the kids had been tracked out for 3 weeks before we went, and we'd done museums, and parks, and play dates until I was ready to cry. I think I did a couple of times, actually. Pregnancy hormones are the best. Also, the kids were sick of each other from all the "togetherness" of the previous 3 weeks, so there was more arguing amongst the troops than I think there otherwise would have been.

Note to self: either do big trips at the beginning of track-out, or just take the kids out of school. They'll enjoy it more, and I won't be so tired. On the whole, I think I did pretty well, though, considering that I was at the end of my 2nd trimester, and waddling around like a duck out of water. A duck with varicose veins, no less.

We tried to give Jarom and Taran some "big kid time" in each of the parks, so we would split up for a little while each day, and Jeff would take the two oldest on the roller-coasters that I couldn't go on anyway, and I would take the little kids and do something else fun. Of course, that usually included a "magical" trip to the bathroom as well, because of yes, the aforementioned pregnancy. I think I literally visited every single bathroom in every single park at least once during our trip, if not more than once.

Dad and the big kids really enjoyed Space Mountain, Splash Mountain (Kelcey got to go on that one too), Mission Space, the Rockin' Roller Coaster, and Star Tours. However, Expedition Everest was too high (shocker), and the Tower of Terror was just, well, terrifying. I know, I know. You're thinking, you let an 8 and 10 year old ride those? Poor judgment on our part, I agree, but they really, really wanted to, and they fit the height requirement, so I figured it couldn't be too bad.

Yeah, I was wrong.

But I think our favorite rides were actually the ones we got to do altogether, like Pirates of the Caribbean, or Winnie the Pooh—especially Toy Story Mania, a ride at Hollywood Studios, where you try to hit 3D targets like you're in a carnival. But a gazillion times cooler than that! It was the only ride that they kids said, as they were getting off the ride, "We've got to do that again!"

One of the coolest things that we were able to do was to meet quite a few Characters while we were there.

Kelcey got to meet Snow White:

We had lunch with Winnie the Pooh and his friends:

They met Tinkerbell (Jarom said that he didn't want to go, but later admitted that she was pretty funny):

Ben got to meet Lightning McQueen and Mater:

Taran got to meet King Louis:

and then we got to have dinner with Cinderella and 4 other princesses! (the girls were in absolute HEAVEN):

We also had a couple of extra fun moments while we were there. While we were on the Carousel in Fantasyland we realized that Taran and Kelcey were riding Cinderella's horse! We had read about it in a trivia book I checked out of the library, and had been keeping our eyes out for it. (Also, a cast member told us that they were on Cinderella's horse, so it's true, right?) Apparently, it's the only one with a gold ribbon on the tail. Pretty neat.

And we found the mystery wedding ring in the pavement at the Haunted Mansion! We had been looking for it, but I guess when they re-did the ride they moved it from where it was at the exit, to a place in the waiting line in the cemetary. The first time through we missed it, but we asked a cast memeber where it was, so when we went through later that night, we were looking very closely, and Jarom found it! So cool!

We all had a truly fantastic time, and each of the kids has longingly sighed, at one time or another, "Mom, I wish we were back in Disney World." Even Ben has asked several times to go back to the "Tiny Chairs," his name for our cabin, because there was a child size table and chairs in a corner.