Disney Day 3- Hollywood Studios

Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios.  It was our first time going to this park and we weren't quite sure about it.  We scheduled an early breakfast at Hollywood and Vine.  We were really excited to see some Disney Jr characters.  We took advantage of being in the park really early and snapped some pictures on the empty streets, too.

Breakfast was a buffet and pretty yummy.  The characters were Sophia the first, Doc McStuffins, Handy Manny, and Jake.  They walked around and met with everyone to take pictures and sign autographs.  Then they would all do little dances to their theme songs or parade around and let the kids join in.

After breakfast, we wandered our way down to Star Tours, only to see some Jedi training.  Which we found out we should have sprinted to get our kids signed up for because we missed being able to do that.  We will know for next time.  The boys rode the Star Tours ride and loved it.  Then we caught The Little Mermaid and Disney Jr shows.  After that we headed over to grab some snacks and ride Toy Story Mania using our Fast Passes.  The Green Army Men were all over the area and were so awesome.  The boys loved watching them playing hide and seek with each other.  We decided not to stand in the super long line to meet Buzz and Woody, and headed back to the room for a rest.

We came back and had dinner at 50's PrimeTime, (pictures of Haddie trying to eat a lemon HA) then tried to figure out what to do next.  We wanted to catch the Indiana Jones show, but the timing didn't work out.  We ran over to Toy Story Mania to ride it again.  Only to get to the front of the line and Ellie needed to go potty.  So the boys rode while the girls went out.  We thought about meeting Buzz and Woody, but the line got closed down while we were in the bathroom.  After the boys got done, we thought we would check out Honey I shrunk the kids playground, but it was closed. 

Hollywood Studios was a hard one to plan for because of it being more shows and having to know the schedule of those.  I felt like we did a lot of hurrying to just wait or things not even happening at all.  But the boys loved it.  Like loved, loved, loved it.  So, I think we would go back, but with a better plan after having been there once.

Disney 2014 Day 2- Magic Kingdom

Our day started bright and early.  We made it to Magic Kingdom before rope drop.  Ya'll, did you see what I just said?  We, my family of 6, made it to Magic Kingdom before rope drop.  That meant that we were leaving our hotel room at 7:45 in order to catch the bus.  It was so so fun to see the opening show and watch my kids flip at their first siting of characters.  We planned to grab the train first thing to jet over to New Fantasyland quickly.  But the train was shut down for refurbishments.  We were a bit bummed until we realized oh wow all the characters are walking right in front of us.  It was so cool.  We changed our plan and headed up Main St. to go to New Fantasyland.

We went to Tales with Belle and Ben was cast as Chip.  It was so cute.  He hopped around and interacted with Belle and the other characters.  Then we got to take pictures with her and have her sign our autographs books.  It was Ellie's first character meeting, and she was mesmerized.  She barely could speak and just stared up at her.  

Then we rode a few rides.  We loved Under the Sea. Ellie screamed "it's a mermaid!" every single time she saw Ariel.  Spence and the boys headed to see about 7 dwarves while the girls and I headed to Winnie the Pooh.  But apparently something happened with the ride, so the boys came over with us.  Then we did Peter Pan all together.  After that we headed to see Cinderella and Rapunzel.  This. This was seriously magical.  Ellie was so excited.  She was just beside herself.  She kept wanting to hold both of Cinderella's hands.  And wouldn't let her go.  (BTW I almost caused Cinderella to break character when she asked how I got Haddie's bow on her head.  It was a highlight moment for me) Then when we saw Rapunzel, she wanted her to do the same thing with the hands.  The boys totally loved her and chatting with her.  She said funny things like calling the Sharpie a paintbrush and the autograph book a sketchbook.  They cracked up about that.  

After meeting the princesses, we grabbed some lunch and then went to the promised Buzz Lightyear ride.  We had to keep telling the boys it was coming if they would just get through the princess stuff.   Zeke and Spence and Ellie rode in one together and had a blast.  Ben, Haddie and I rode together.  In our picture you can see that Ben got a little freaked out in the ride.  After Buzz, we went home so the girls could nap and we could all rest before going back for a long night including the parade and fireworks.

Once we got back to MK, we grabbed dinner at Tony's and then ran over to meet Tinker Bell because there wasn't a long wait.  Ya'll.  Haddie said bye bye for the first time to Tinker Bell (or as Ellie says it Tinka-BELL).  She was giddy over meeting her.  Tinker Bell really was super fun and sassy to chat with.

After this, we had the kids' silhouettes made because it was my favorite thing from our last trip.  Then we went and staked out our spots for the parade.  While Spence held our seats, I ran around and got snacks for everyone.  We enjoyed our amazing Dole Whips while waiting.  The parade was awesome.  Ellie pointed at everything and waved and yelled the entire time.  Zeke and Ben used their light up Dusty toys and pointed out every single character.  Haddie fell asleep on me.  Once the parade ended, we started working our way out of the park.  We had decided we would walk out while the fireworks were going off, but changed our minds when we saw the castle changing colors.  Spence put Ellie on his shoulders, Zeke stood up in the stroller and it was one of those moments that will forever be etched in my mind.  Ben and Haddie both were asleep.  Our first in park day was in the books.  And honestly, I wasn't sure how we would top it.