vacation. days three and four.

On our third day of vacation we left Atlanta around 8am. It was about an eight hour drive - that's with stops for gas and food. We got to our room, ate a dinner/snack, and took off for Downtown Disney...we took the boat instead of the bus. It seemed much more exciting. And it was, but, dang, it was FREEZING. And, in case you were wondering, YES, we took the bus, not the boat, back to the hotel.



Downtown Disney was CROWDED. Wall to wall people in the LEGO store. Emily picked out a new house building set. Eric loaded up on a la carte Lego parts. I tried to keep Paige out of trouble. She, Paige, picked out a stuffed "Lumpy" - from the Heffalump movie. Lumpy is no longer with us...but I'll go into that a bit later.

We went back to the room around 9ish and set the alarm for a wake up at 6:30am. The park opened at 9am, and we wanted to squeeze every possible minute out of the day at the Magic Kingdom that we could.


Waiting for the gates to open. The Mayor of Disney comes out and they do this song and dance, Mickey and all the others arrive on the train, throw out some fairy dust, and the park opens. It was very Disney. And of course, I got all teary. I am such a Disney sap.


First stop was the Teacups.



Then the cars.



Dumbo.
And the Carousel. We rode this THREE times.

Nap time...see Lumpy??

Emily on her second roller coaster of the day. She rode on Thunder Mountain earlier...her first time, and she LOVED it.

Then, we had lunch at the Crystal Palace. If you have never eaten there, I highly recommend it. It's buffet style, but the food is AWESOME. Really. They have the BEST pickles. And mashed potatoes, salad, chicken, steak.....No kidding. AND, the characters - Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet - come right to your table. And since it's the CRYSTAL palace, the roof is all windows, so the light is DIVINE. They do this parade around the whole restaurant where the kids get follow them and wave their napkins in the air. Emily loved it all. The only thing is, it's a lot of distraction, and apparently this leads to little children not eating much. Oh well. It's my favorite place to eat at Disney, and if we don't get to go there, my visit is just not complete.

Paige loved all the characters. And even though Emily doesn't really remember, she was still an old hat at knowing what to do. I did ask her at one point if she knew that they weren't real, and she did, but she said it was still pretty cool.









Then we went on the people mover. I know, not the most exciting. But we like it.

And we met Mickey and Minnie. My children look totally disheveled. Must have been that 45 minute wait.....


Carousel again.....

Eric took this while Emily and I rode on Big Thunder Mountain again.

I know it's cheesy and corny, but that place is just so MAGICAL. Every few minutes the castle changes color. Very enjoyable to watch while waiting for the fireworks show.

And can I just say....the fireworks....AMAZING. It's set to music. Tinkerbell flies above you on a zip line that starts out at the top of the castle. And I cried. Big surprise right?

So, at the end of the night, we rode the Teacups one more time, the Carousel one more time, watched the SpectroMagic parade with the girls on our shoulders...OUCH...and left.

I won't go into too much detail, but after waiting about 15 minutes for a bus, we finally were able to get on one, and have seats....right across from a child who had apparently had a bit too much fun at the Magic Kingdom. His fun spilled out of him and all over the floor. EWWWWWWWW!! So, we plugged our noses, and waited, not so patiently, for our stop. I was so concerned with just getting off that bus, and not stepping in the "fun", that I didn't notice that Paige dropped her precious Lumpy somewhere on the bus. I realized this about halfway back to the room. Emily was very upset about it. Paige didn't even notice. Oh well.

It was a messy way to end a perfectly wonderful day. But, the magic was still there. I have missed Disneyworld so much, and we all can't wait to go back!