Disney World!

When I was growing up, our favorite vacation was always the one that ended in Orlando at Disney World. I don’t know how young I was when I first went, but I’m pretty sure my sister wasn’t around yet, which means that I was probably not yet 5. We didn’t go every year, but I’m pretty sure we went as often as we could. As for Christy, I don’t know whether or not she had the early-age indoctrination that I did, but by the time I met her she was also a Disney nerd. Since we’ve been married (went there for our honeymoon), we’ve made an effort to go once every other year. This being an even numbered year meant that it was time. 2 year old in tow and all.

Coincidentally, as I mentioned in the last post, my dad decided sometime in early summer of this past year that he wanted to take a bunch of us on a Disney Cruise. Worked for us, we were already planning on going. Christy, however, was not satisfied to have cruise days substitute for Disney World days. We were planning on 6 nights in Disney World, and she demanded to have her 6 nights. Dad was planning on doing the cruise and then 3 nights on land after the cruise, for which I wanted to join him, so I caved and agreed to do 4 more nights before the cruise. And since we’d have David with us, we told Christy’s mom and step-dad that they had to come with us for those first 4 days.

Obviously, one cannot condense 7 days of Disney World and 4 days of Disney cruise into a blog post. My posts are too long as it is. I can say, though, that it was pretty awesome. I was a little leery of doing this with a 2 year old, but he was really great the whole time. It took a day or two to get used to trying to schedule lunch and a nap in every day, but once we had that figured out, it was pretty smooth sailing.

He loved the characters - we spent more time waiting in line to see characters than we have in all of the times that we’ve been to Disney World combined. He also liked the Dumbo ride (and similar Aladdin carpet ride one) that goes in a circle and lets the rider go up in the air. The Epcot Food & Wine Festival was going on while we were there; that was pretty awesome. - lots of really good food in small portions so you could try everything. We did the Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, which was pretty awesome - street dancing (David loves music), candy, fireworks, smaller crowd. We also did Mickey’s Christmas Party after we got back from the cruise - not as awesome. MUCH bigger crowd, almost seemed like there were more people than there were during the day. Otherwise, it was just typical Disney awesomeness.

The cruise was a neat experience too. I’d never been on one of those, so it took me a day or so to get used to the motion. Christy and David never seemed to have a problem with it, though, and we all had a really good time. There was lots of water to play in, Disney’s private island was pretty cool, and David loved being able to play with Miles through all of it. The food was amazing, and we all loved the underlying M.O. of “make passengers feel like royalty”.

In the end, it was a fabulous trip. People have told me, “you know, he will never remember any of that.” To which I think, “I hope not, that means I get to take him for the first time AGAIN!” I can say, though, that he remembers so far. He will still tell us occasionally that we need to go to the Magic Kingdom today. And I will also say that doing Disney with a toddler is a lot of fun. It’s different than without - planning for lunch, dinner, and naps is key - but I’m definitely glad we went. It could be that David’s inherent awesomeness made the trip better than it would be with a normal kid, but I have no way to judge that. All I can say is that with an awesome 2 year old, Disney World is still awesome.

More pictures can be found here.