Day 5 at Epcot

Wednesday we went to Epcot.  Epcot is a place that Jeff and the kids had never been, and I had not been since I was 8 years old.  Nana and Buddy were there the last time just a few years ago.

First we rode Soarin and a couple others, and then headed to have breakfast with the "Princesses of Norway," hosted by Belle.  We met her on the way into the dining room. After we went to our table, we were visited by Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, and Snow White during the meal.  This was another time of the trip that Sydney just loved. 

During the princess parade, Sydney pushed found her way to the front of Sleeping        Beauty's line and held her hand.

After breakfast, we rode a couple of boat rides & made our way around the countries in the World Showcase, stopping to see some friends and enjoy the sites along the way.

Two of my favorite pictures of the entire trip coming here...

They love each other so much

Sydney wanted to meet Jasmine, so we stopped in "Morocco" to do that.

As I posted before, JJ kept telling us that he didn't like princesses because he was a boy.  However, he was happy to meet Aladdin (he said "I see the boy") who was with Princess Jasmine.

 As you can see, he decided Jasmine was okay too :)

My Snow White was excited to go see Snow White and JJ was looking for the Dwarfs too.

No dwarfs here, but we found Snow White at the wishing well.

Looks like to me he's happy to see her too. 

Pictures with two different princesses in one day!

A neat thing going on during the time we were visiting was Epcot's Annual Flower & Garden Festival.  The topiaries and flowers made for some pretty cool landscape photos.

 Before we left Epcot for the evening, we rode a few other rides, visited Nemo & Crush, ate some dinner and visited Mickey & Pluto.

We had a good day at Epcot, but overall enjoyed Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios much more.  Thursday (the next day) was our open day of the week and the kids chose to return to Hollywood Studios.  JJ wanted to see Buzz and Woody again and ride the "BuzzWoodyride".  Sydney decided that Toy Story Mania (and Splash Mountain) was her favorite ride too and we were looking forward to those things and seeing Fantasmic once again. 

We left Epcot and returned to the room to get some rest for the next day with Buzz and Woody! 

Disney Day 4 at Animal Kingdom

We spent our Tuesday at Animal Kingdom.  Once again, we were visiting a park that no one in our group had been to before.

After we arrived, we went straight to the safari ride twice and then headed to Donald's Safari breakfast at the Tusker House.

 

We saw Donald first, and then went inside to eat, where we saw Goofy, Mickey & Daisy.

We enjoyed our brunch and the visits from the characters-well, most of us enjoyed the visits from the characters ;)

   In the afternoon we checked our more rides, shows and trails.  Jeff checked out Expedition Everest (it was broken earlier in the day when I had the chance to ride it !)  while I took the kids to see someone else they wanted to visit. 


JJ received the Winnie the Pooh movie for Christmas, and they have both become huge fans of these characters.  Actually the movie has played over and over in our van for the past two plus months and they both have most of it memorized. 

 

Tigger is one of JJ's favorite characters.  He is always saying "Tigger silly, Tigger funny."

When he saw Tigger for the first time, he ran and tackled him with a hug.

JJ does not understand the whole "dressing up" thing.  I am just positive that he thought he was actually with the Mickey, and the Tigger, etc all week long. 

Sydney loved all of it too, but she asks and we tell her about the characters being pretend.  At one point in the week, she told us "I really like those people who dress up like the characters."  HA!

More Tigger... 

We finished our day at Animal Kingdom before dinner, and headed back to the resort and to Downtown Disney to eat and shop.  We were happy that we got to experience Animal Kingdom, and there are some neat things there.  However, it was definitely our least favorite of the four parks.

Disney Day 3...a princess day

We spent the day at Magic Kingdom, beginning with an early morning breakfast before park open at Cinderella's castle.  Sydney loved going to the castle to see Cinderella and all the other princesses!  On the way into breakfast, she (we all) got to meet Cinderella.

Once we went upstairs in the castle, we ate breakfast and Sydney got to meet and get pictures with Belle, Ariel, Aurora and Snow White.

 

Belle was so sweet, and LOOK!!!!...I caught Lukey smiling at her!

It was a lot of fun to take our little princess to Cinderella's castle!  

With the nature of our family makeup, I always think of Sydney as my big girl. 

At times like this, I am reminded that she is still just a little girl herself-and a very precious one at that!

After we left the castle, we spent the morning riding favorites such as Winnie the Pooh, It's a Small World, Peter Pan, Pirates of the Caribbean and Splash Mountain. 

How about my cute pirate with Pirate Goofy!?

After lunch, Sydney was ready to go meet her favorite princess!  And at this point in the trip JJ was saying "I don't like princess.  I boy." :)  So, Jeff took him to ride a few things, including the train which he loves.  Sydney and I went to wait in the very long hour plus line to see a special someone.  Turns out, I'm very glad we did.

Of course, she loved the entire week, but she would tell you that her favorite thing of the whole trip was meeting Rapunzel. It was so sweet.  She had colored the princess a picture and Rapunzel told her what a wonderful artist she was.  Do you know what this meant to her...my little girl who already sometimes says she wants to be an artist ?! :)  Sweet!

We later met back up with Daddy and JJ to watch the afternoon parade and ride a few things.  We also visited someone they really like again.

JJ loved seeing these characters so much and would smile so big every time we were around them....we were constantly having to tell him "open your eyes JJ" for the pictures because when he smiles really big his eyes are almost closed.  It was funny all week long.

Sydney wanted to visit some of the princesses...again.  Why not?!

                                                 

 Later, after a quick dinner, we closed out our night with the Main Street Electrical Parade and Wishes fireworks display.  Our kids always have the best seat for things like this.  A tall daddy sure comes in handy!

 

Another great day for the princess, the two pirates and all the adults too!