The Dugans Take Disney World

I have the distinct feeling, as I sit down to  write this, that this could be one of those blog posts that  ends up going on for ages.  Because let's face it, and use past history as a judge...if I can ramble on incessantly about a weekend full of trips to Target, putting away laundry and cooking for the family, I will surely go off the deep end with a major vacation like Disney World.  So, for all of our sakes, I'm going to attempt to boil this down into a reasonable list of highlights.  You can thank me later.

 

 

For starters, our air travel was pretty uneventful, considering the crowd we were lugging around.  I will say that the iPads and the kids' DS'es (how do you make that plural?) were life savers.  We also had plenty of snacks and the like to occupy them on the flight and in the airport.  We stayed the night before our flight at the hotel that is attached to the Philadelphia Airport.  This turned out to be a very good call and avoided early morning travel that would have done nothing but put everyone into a bad mood.  We arrived and made good use of the Magical Express that picks you up at the airport and transports you directly to your resort.  My absolute favorite part of that exercise is the fact that you don't have to get your luggage at the airport.  It "magically" arrives in your room later.  Luckily we had enough supplies with us to not waste any time in hitting the parks as soon as we landed.

 

 

We  spent much of our time at the Magic Kingdom because that's where the kids wanted to be.  Crowds were manageable, temperatures were only a fraction  of where they are headed in the Florida summertime, and the parks were just as magical as I remembered them being.  We were lucky enough to be able to  catch the parade in the Magic Kingdom our first night, something I hadn't banked on being able to do, but it was fun.  Lauren fell asleep JUST before it began, but Joshua really enjoyed getting his first peek at Mickey Mouse, and his spotting of Captain Hook!  Well worth it, in my opinion.

 

We were able to do some swimming one afternoon at our resort.  The pool there was absolutely gorgeous, and provided a great spot to unwind from two days at the parks.  The kids seemed to really enjoy  themselves.  Joshua and Lauren are both showing some improvement in their swimming skills.  And given the fact that squeezing time into our schedules for formal lessons seems unlikely, I was really pleased to see them enjoying the water and the waterslide at the hotel without needing to be held or caught at the bottom.

 

 One of my highlights of the trip was our trip to Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort on Tuesday morning for a character breakfast.  It was amazing to be able to meet the characters up close, get pictures and autographs, and just have some fun with them without having to stand in the heat in a long line.  As you can imagine, if there were any times that the wheels fell off for our crew, it was in long lines and heat.  So we avoided them both as much as possible.

Also on my list of favorite activities was the Disney Junior show at Hollywood Studios.  The girls absolutely loved it.  And even though Joshua is starting to get too big and too grown up to admit enjoying the likes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Doc  McStuffins, Sofia the First and Jake and the Neverland Pirates, even he enjoyed the show.  The girls cracked me up- dancing, singing along, and clapping like crazy when a character they love showed up on stage.

That evening, we ate dinner at the 50's Prime Time Café- sort of like going to dinner with Leave It To Beaver.  Each table has a mom who makes you set the table, eat your veggies, and mind your manners.  Joshua immediately hit it off with our "mom" and ended up telling her all sorts of jokes and showing her his knowledge of the Presidents.  She was obviously smitten with him, and kept bringing her other waitress friends over to meet her new buddy.  It was great.

This seems a great time to highlight the amazing service we got at every restaurant we ate at with reference to Joshua's allergy.  Every time we sat down, our reservation was flagged with our allergy needs.  Within  minutes, the chef was at our table going over the menu with us and telling us what would be safe choices for Joshua.  Then, each of his meals was specially prepared and brought to him.  We were even able to eat off of a buffet at one of the restaurants, which is nearly unheard of with a severe food allergy.  Disney certainly lived up to its reputation of being a tremendously food allergy friendly resort.  Even all of the snack food was either clearly labeled, or the vendors were able to show us the allergy binder that listed all ingredients and possible cross contaminants.  For a family like us who struggles to find safe places to go/eat, this was a real relief to us and took a lot of the stress out of the vacation for Jason and me.

A high point for Joshua was most definitely the Hall of Presidents in the Magic Kingdom.  I absolutely loved watching his face light up as each of the Presidents was introduced.  We had to laugh because the  show had hardly anyone in it- and our children were certainly the only ones.  The girls were not interested, but it was worth their scrooching just to watch Joshua enjoy himself.

Wednesday was definitely a tough day for the girls in the parks.  Given the fact they both got sick as soon as we got home, I now realize that that probably had something to do with their lack of patience and likelihood to burst into hysterics at the drop of a hat.  But Lauren did get to meet some princesses and get her picture taken with them, which she seemed to enjoy.

That afternoon, the girls and I headed back to the Wilderness Lodge to rest while Daddy and Josh rode some bigger rides.  That day was special for Joshua because Daddy took him to get made up like a pirate.  He really seemed to like that.  Somehow we missed a picture of that on the big camera, although I do have one on my phone that I'll have to see if I can upload.  Our strategy to divide and conquer wasn't what we had intended to do, but when the girls were melting down, we saw no good reason to penalize Josh, so it just worked better to let him have some special time with Daddy while the girls decompressed a bit.

After a long day of travel on the way home starting at 6:45 am and ending at 5:15 when we pulled into our driveway, we were all glad to be home with lots of memories to cherish from this trip.  I absolutely loved the family time together without interruptions.  Although this trip was a lot of work for Jason and me to coordinate and plan for and work to make happen, it was well worth it in our opinions.  The kids had a blast, and so did we.

See you in a few years, Disney!