Happy Birthday Disney Princess...

So our first day at Disney started off very, very early. Originally it wouldn't have been so bad as our first reservation was at the Contemporary, and we're just going to walk over to The Magic Kingdom.  However, things change money gets tight and for much less we could stay at Fort Wilderness and tack another night on, so we switched and I am very glad we did.  Now don't get me wrong I still plan to stay Club Level at the Contemporary one day, but I think I want my girls to be old enough to  really appreciate that, so for now the Fort is a great place for us.  Anyway I digress, the day started off at 6am for me and mom and we got Boogie up at about 6:30 to get her into her surprise princess dress and slippers for the boat trip across the lagoon to the gates of the happiest place on earth.  Now I know you are wondering why in the world we would be up so early when the parks don't open until 9am, but that was my surprise to Boogie.  I made her an appt with her very own fairy godmother in training at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and that was at 8am.  This meant we had to catch the first boat leaving the Fort for Magic Kingdom that morning.  So in the early morning darkness we trekked to the bus stop with a bleary eyed Princess to catch the bus...and missed it.  Yep we missed the bus that would get us to the first boat that would get us to Magic Kingdom in time for Boogie to meet her Fairy Godmother.  I should mention that on this trip I was also 10 weeks pregnant, so just a smidge emotional and this was almost my undoing as I just knew that Boogie's birthday would be ruined.  I was over reacting just a smidge as another bus was at the stop in just a few minutes.  We still had time to catch that boat but it was going to be close....

Mom and Charlotte patiently waiting for the 2nd bus.

Well our earlier luck held out and the first boat was just ....pulling away from the dock as we got there.  OH LORD THIS WAS NOT STARTING OUT WELL.  There were other people waiting with us and they were hopeful that another boat would be along any minute.  The round trip for the boats is 30 minutes so if one didn't come soon,  Boogie would miss her appt. To pass the time and calm my nerves I took some pictures....

 I told you it was really, really early.

 Mom did a great job snapping a picture of me and my princess just as the sun was starting to come up

The lagoon was pretty as the sun was rising

Then we saw it, the boat that would take us to The Magic Kingdom, and the day was saved. :D

We made it over to the gates and through security, yes they check bags, but are quick and efficient.  Since we had a reservation we just walked right through the gate and under the train station and came out on Main Street.  There is just no way to explain that feeling, especially the first time you get to see it on your child's face.  I seriously teared up for a moment. Then I collected myself and took a picture.

Boogie's very first picture in the Magic Kingdom.

For all those taking kids for the first time I highly recommend getting either a reservation for your Princess or Pirate early in the morning, or making a Breakfast reservation for the Crystal Palace to meet Pooh and friends.  This guarantees that you are one of the first people to walk down  Main Street in the morning and it is wonderful.  Look how few people are behind Boogie, it was almost like having the park to ourselves.  Another thing that I would recommend is that if it is your child's birthday let the cast members know.  They go out of their way to make them feel special, and the characters in the parades are more likely to show them special attention. 

Mom caught up with us right after we took this picture and we were off towards the castle.  I don't know who was more excited me or Boogie.  The light was simply amazing so I took a few shots along the way, and as it turns out we hand plenty of time, since the Boutique was not quite ready for us....they were still getting Cinderella ready.

Here are a few photos of our trip down Main Street and the beautiful early morning light.

 One of my favorite pictures of the trip.

 The park was all decked out for Halloween since we were there the week before

Another favorite of mine, I just secretly wish one of her slippers had fallen off. :D

We waited patiently with two other princesses inside the castle for the doors to the boutique to open, and right at 8am they did.

 There is a royal proclamation right as you walk in and then you get to meet your Fairy Godmother in training.  The packages for girls range from $49 to close to $200 if you get the whole shebang.  I opted for the $49 package which included Boogies choice of hair style, make up clip, crown and sash.  I then bought her dress and slippers elsewhere, and I can honestly say it didn't matter a bit that we didn't buy them at the boutique.  One other note I will make is that while the dresses are cute and well made they will more then likely not make it through the whole day on your princess so definitely bring a change of clothes.  Boogie made it about 6 hours.

 Her FGM got right to work and Boogie was simply mesmerized.

 I swear if I pulled on her hair the way this wonderful lady did she would have fallen on the floor in  hysterics.

 They put TONS of product in their hair, I mean globs of gel and then hair spray too, but the do made it through the whole day including a nap, and it washed out very easily at bath time.

 Not sure what  this face was for, but I am glad I am not on the receiving end of that look.  Maybe the photographer was over there.  I'll hit on the Photopass in a minute.

 See told you it was early

 Soon the do was done and it was time for the Pixie dust.

 Another FGM did her make up and then it was time for her Birthday Princess Sash to complete the look.

 Once they are all finished and beautiful they turn them around for the big reveal.  Boogie just stared at herself it was so cute.  The photopass man got a much better picture, but I was just soaking in the moment.

 Then we had to get her FGM to autograph her book.  She really did a wonderful job and made Boogie feel so special.  Absolutely worth the $54 with tax. LOL!!

The girls also get to bring everything home with them,  make up stickers and magic comb.

The other great part about this experience especially for me the photographer was the Photopass photographer.  If you sign up for this before you head to Disney they will send you a photopass card in the mail.  You just hand this little card to any photographer and they scan it and take your picture.  They will also take photos with your camera if you ask them too.  It is a wonderful feature and we really took advantage of it.  We also pre-ordered a CD of all our photo pass pictures and split the cost with my parents.  It worked out to be $50 for each family and we got well over 120 photopass pictures in our three days at the park.  You can also add multiple cards to the same account and there is not limit on the number of photos that can be taken, so if you are there for 5-7 days or even longer you could really rack up the photos.  I was very happy with our pictures and definitely feel it was worth the cost.  You can read more about this service on the Disney website or over at http://www.allears.net/.

Okay so once we finished up in the Boutique we headed straight to Dumbo, and I have to admit in the many many many times that I have been to Disney I never rode this ride.  What a lost experience, it was so wonderful, I will say that even first thing in the morning it was the longest line that we waited in all day long, so if you have kiddos that want to ride head there first.

 Timothy presides over the ride...

 A close up of the clip they put in Boogies hair, nice and sparklie.

 Just about the get on the ride...and yes I am holding a 40lb child.

One last shot before we start...

Here we go........

The ride was definitely a lot of fun, but over very quickly, so again to avoid the super long lines get there early and make the ride really worth the wait.

Next we headed to Prince Charming's Carousel...

 My Princess loves a carousel

 and making funny faces....

She knows how to make that horse look fast doesn't she.

The carousel wait was non existent, and if she had insisted we could have just stayed on and rode again, but across the court yard we saw some people that we could not miss.

 When you are dressed up like Cinderella right down to the hairdo and the crown you do not miss an opportunity to snap a picture with Lady Tremaine and her daughters.

 These are some of my favorite photos and to be honest I believe these three were my favorite characters to encounter.  They were truly themselves and kidding with the crowd standing in line, making all the kids laugh, it was wonderful.

 Boogie loved them too.  I would say if you have to chose between these three and a princess go for these three it is well worth the missed opportunity.

 Boogie took a breather at Cinderella's fountain to adjust her shoe and gather her strength.

 She also obliged her mom with a cute photo and a pretty smile.

 On our way around to ride the newly reopened Its a Small World, Boogie had to try her luck at the Sword in the Stone.  She couldn't get it budge but she was sure that since her daddy was the strongest daddy in the world he would be able to do it.  Unfortunately we never made it back for him to try, just another reason for a future trip. You may or may not know but a couple of times a day the sword does pull out of the stone.  I don't know if someone watches and activates a release or if it just does it at random times, but you just never know, so give it a shot.

 The guys and PJ were still MIA, we gave them permission to join us later.  Since I know that my dad has no fond love of IASW we spared him this trip and mom and I took Boogie on her first trip.  The ride had been under renovation and was not suppose to be open until the Saturday of our trip, so we were surprised when the cast member waved us in and we walked right onto a boat, in the front so Boogie could see everything.  It was a great way to introduce her to Its a Small World and dad really appreciated being spared that one ride.  His aversion might have something to do with my insistence at an early age that we ride it over and over and over again.  All you have to do is hum the tune to send him running.  LOL!!

 The hippo was my favorite.  I just have this thing for cute hippos.

 She looks like a deer in the headlights I know but I think it was just a lot to process and so she just tuned out for a minute.  Boogie loved it through.

That is another thing to remember, as much as we as adults love Disney it can be a little over stimulating for smaller kids I think.  Take moments for downtime just to process and breath and not be bombarded with things.  One of the best ways that we found to do this was to just stroll over to Tomorrowland and hop on the Wedway People Mover.  Kinda fun, not to fast, but not throwing images at you every two seconds, and getting on takes hardly any time at all.  A win win all around...

By the time we got off of IASW we had a call from the guys saying they were here, and where could we meet.  As they were still coming through the gates we suggested meeting in front of the castle so that Boogie could stop and talk to this lovely lady.

 Mary Poppins was always a favorite of mine, and Boogie adores singing (or trying to sing) Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious (bare with me on the spelling here)

This has to be one of the prettiest Mary's that Disney has, she was really wonderful with Boogie and I am so glad that we saw her before we met up with the guys.  It was a great way to end our morning of girl time.

Since this post has gotten very, very long I am going to stop here and fill you in on our afternoon later.  I don't want you eyes to glaze over as you start staring off into space humming Its a Small World.  So tomorrow I will hit on our lunch, not what I had hoped it would be, and what rides some kids may not like, as well as Boogies first trip down Splash Mountain.

Thanks for checking in with me, hope your enjoying the info and pictures thus far.

The first expereince with Disney magic....

I started a post about our trip a while back and then realized that I could not find a lot of the pictures from dinner on our first night, and many of the pictures from the 1st day which I really needed, so I went on a hunt.  It took me until New Years Day to find them hiding on my MIL's computer, but thank goodness they were there, because that was my last resort.  So now having found those photos I can finish our trip review, and what a trip it was.  I am just itching to go back, soon, but alas I  am afraid I will have to wait at least until the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon in 2012.

To recap from our day at Sea World which is how we started Boogie's Birthday Trip Extravaganza go here..http://littledeucecooper.blogspot.com/2010/11/hi-ho-hi-ho-its-off-to-disney-we-go.html. I've added a few new photos here as well.

Anyway back to the Disney magic, we were checking into The Ft. Wilderness Cabins, but check in wasn't until 4pm so we decided to get dinner 1st and slowly introduce Boogie and PJ to the Disney Magic. Boogie has really been into bones and dinosaurs lately so I though what better place to eat then here...

If you have a child that loves dinosaurs this is a must do...although I will say that it is loud inside.

 The giant skeleton outside is a real show stopper, and is  identified, although I can't remember exactly what it is (Sorry)

 There are different themed parts of the restaurant, and with our 5pm reservation we were seated right away and the restaurant was fairly empty.  We sat in the ocean area which I though was kinda ironic since we had just come from Sea World and this fish tank was directly behind us.  Boogie was mesmerized.

 They encourage you to get up if you want and walk around and look at everything.  This is the Ice Cave.  Every 15 minutes or so a meteor crashes and the animatronic animals come alive and the ice cave changes color.  I have to admit that I loved it.  Again it was noisy, but not noisy enough to bother our 8 month old, so even with small children, unless they have a problem with loud noises you should be fine.

 No photo that I could take could do this guy justice.  He is huge and sits over the bar.  If you look at the bottom center of the picture that is a fish tank that encompasses the whole back of the bar, and people this is one big bar.  The eyes on the octopus also move from time to time.

 This is the guy that meets you at the very front of the restaurant.  Again animatronic so he moves and roars, a great crowd pleaser.  I can not stress enough that if  you have children that love dinosaurs, this is the place to eat at least once on your trip.  Just prepare yourself for the noise and I say pick an off eating time.  Our dinner reservation was a bit early and we were right in and seated, there was one stroller in the stroller parking.  When we left the line was around the side of the building and I could barely find our stroller.  Repeat to yourself...early is better, early is better.

 If your really worried about the noise and how it might effect your little ones.  You can see that PJ just really didn't care, when it was time to sleep it was time to sleep. Daddy made a nice comfy place to rest her little eyes.

 These two photos are outside of the restaurant.  Just a prop, to show the attention to detail which is one of the things that I think makes Disney so amazing, and a dig site.  Boogie loved this and while they have to take their shoes off to go in and excavate, its not sand in there so no worries.  It is finely diced rubber, so wipes right off of little feet.  There is also a sink station and hand sanitizer for little hands when their finished digging for fossils.

I did not take any photos of our food, I think I was too hungry, but it was very good.  The portions are huge so to  cut down on the cost two people could easily split an entree.  We had an appetizer for the table, 3 adult entrees (Salmon, Ribs and a Quesadila) as well as a kids meal, one soda and two "adult" beverages and the bill was right about $150.  Higher then at your local place, but for Disney and what we ordered not bad.  I scouted the menu online and read reviews on Allears.net so I knew what to budget for and was prepared.  That is my biggest suggestion, be prepared.  Disney is expensive, it just is, your going to pay $3.50 for a 16oz soda that's just all their is to it.  So look up the menus for the places you think that you would like to eat, and budget.  By preparing a bit before we left I was able to stay right on budget even having added an extra night to our stay late in the planning.

After such great food we wanted to walk a bit and so  wandered around the shops.  The prices are a bit less here then in the parks and we found some good deals as well.  The stores are just interesting to look at as well, and fun to take pictures in front of.  We only bought a few things, but we were able to replace to autograph book and pen that we forgot at home, so World of Disney saved the day there.  We also picked up some pins for Boogies lanyard for her to trade. This is really a lot of fun, and Boogie ended up with some great pins.  Every employee (or at least all that we saw) had Disney pins that they could trade.  I stocked up for Boogie on EBay as it was much less expensive then buying them new.  I got a lot of 25 pins for $10 plus shipping and that came in well under her Happy Birthday pin that I ordered  for her from Disney at $14.95.  So once you have your pins and your lanyard  you can start trading with anyone that you see.  Just say "hello can I trade a pin with you, and your on a roll.  Boogie had some that she really liked so we left those off her lanyard, but the ones she didn't care for we traded for new ones that she did.  It was a ton of fun, and I definitely recommend it as an inexpensive way to get some new mementos from Disney.  She still takes her pins down and looks at them ,and we are almost 3 months out from the trip. 

The other thing that I suggest is to let you kids save their own money for the trip.  Now this was Boogies birthday trip so she did get a kick in from the grandparents for her spending money, but without their help she was able to save about 3/4 of her money on her own.  We counted everything the day before we left and took it to the bank together to cash out, and then I told her how much she had.  If she wanted something she had to buy it from her money and once her money was gone that was it no more souvenirs.  She did great, and after figuring out that money would go pretty fast she really started thinking about her purchases.  It was a great lesson in saving and prioritizing your money, and she still does it post trip, which is the best souvenir  of all if you ask me.

So anyway we did walk around and see all that Downtown Disney had to offer, and there is a lot, just take your time and soak it all in.  Here are a few shots from our wandering.

 This is our first Disney trip picture at Disney.

 Inside the Pin Traders store...

 The Lego Lagoon Monster

 Playground outside of the Lego store

 Jon an Boogie making their Lego creation...

 It got serious and she had to sit on the table.

 Here's the finished project...just kidding, but this guys was awesome!!

 Boogie with some of her Canine Lego friends

You have to watch out for Stitch over one of the doors at World of Disney, he spits.  No really, its funny to to sit back and watch people who aren't paying attention, its not a little stream of water either.  LOL!!

It was fairly late by the time we left and we were more then ready to check into our cabin, so off we headed to Ft. Wilderness.  I unfortunately was more excited to get into the cabin then to take pictures of the Fort. So I don't have anything to post here, but I will say one thing, this is a very unique Disney experience.  In my opinion it is a wonderful place to stay if you have children.  The cabins are nice and roomie with a full kitchen and a little sitting area.  There is a set of bunk beds, and a Full size bed in the bedroom and then a Murphy bed in the sitting area, so you can sleep 6 in each cabin and not be falling all over each other.  There is also a nice deck with a grill outside and you in the woods, so its pretty peaceful.  Other then the cabins you can also tent camp or RV camp at a fairly practical price, and really the best part, your still on the Magic Kingdom lagoon, for a discount price.  We took the boat to Magic Kingdom each time we went and just loved it.  The electric water pageant goes by each night and the music is turned on on the beach, and you can see the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom over the lagoon.  A really really great place to stay.  Plus if you build a down day or two into your schedule, it is very easy to occupy your whole day at playgrounds, fishing in the canals, bike riding, archery, swimming at one of the two pools, horseback riding or caneoing.  There is a ton to do without even leaving the Fort.  A great luxury place to stay at a moderate price.   We really loved the Fort and have not a bad thing to say about it at all.

This post has gotten very very long so I will leave you with our arrival at the Fort.  The next post will be Boogie's first glimpse at the Magic Kingdom, and I will tell you I cried a little. 

Wordless Wednesday - Doing Disney

Here is just a sneak peak of my blogs to come.  I am back tracking a bit and the next few blogs will be all about taking a toddler and a baby on a successful 1st trip to DISNEY!!  For now enjoy a few photos of our fun.

1st up Downtown Disney

 The Lego Lagoon Monster

 Huge fish tank behind our table in T-Rex (highly recommend this place)

Boogie with some of her Lego Canine friends

1st full day in the parks = Princess Birthday @ The Magic Kingdom

 A very early start, but good job Mom with the picture.

 Ah the castle in the early morning Florida light

 If I pulled on her hair this hard there would be a tantrum of epic proportions

 The happy princess on Prince Charming's carousel

 Love this picture, they all kept calling her a travel size Cinderella

 Its a lovely holiday with Mary...

The whole gang minus Mimi and Papa

Day 2 late start = back to Magic Kingdom (but a very abbreviated trip)

 Getting ready to board the boat again for MK

 Not an exceptionally happy camper, should have seen this sign

 Pretty fairy makeup, but the fairy is not the happiest

 Minnie's house was hit, but....

 The line for the Princesses was too long and it was the beginning of the end

 We did squeeze in a ride on the Wedway People Mover, but it was definitely time to go back to the cabin.

That night (after a good long nap) it was time to roast Marshmallows and meet up with some friends.

Day 3 last day in the parks = Another early morning and Animal Kingdom

On the bus heading for Animal Kingdom, it was early but everyone was well rested

 Boogie and her Mimi waiting in line for the Safari

 PJ decided to take a snooze while on safari (no clue how she did this)

 Next we came across some great drums to beat on

 We were also lucky enough to catch Winnie the Pooh and friends before they went for a honey break

 We ended up having them all to ourselves, see Tigger patiently waiting his turn to see us. :D

 PJ took another nap and Pocahontas wanted a sleepy picture with her

Mimi and Papa were invaluable on this trip, I highly recommend grandparents for Disney.

 Another friendly face showed up in the parade

 Then it was back to MK for the Main Street Electrical Parade and Fireworks that night

 You would not even believe me if I told you how far back I was standing to take this photo and without a tripod too. (love my camera)

It was definitely a good day!

I hope I have peaked your interest especially if you will be traveling to MK in the near future.  We learned some really good lessons that I would love to pass on, and there will be more great photos.  All in all we had a marvelous first trip to The World and can not wait to go back.