I’m backdated this post, since it never published yesterday (chalk it up to weird internet issues because of our “faux snow day.” If you’re lucky, you might get two posts in one day! Catch up on our Disney Recaps here: Disney Travel with a Newborn
I said this on Monday, but it’s so weird to think this trip was more than eight weeks ago. Polly looks so little in these photographs, but it doesn’t feel that long ago. I took so many pictures — except the day I forgot my camera and we relied on iPhones and park photographers — so these recaps will be short on words and long on photographs. If you have any questions about our itinerary or details, please leave a comment and I’ll respond to your questions there!
I told you this on Monday, but we flew into Orlando bright and early on a Friday morning. The plan had been to spend the day in Hollywood Studios, since that park is the smallest, and save our extra day for a mid-week rest. We had been told by our resort that there was an hourly shuttle to the parks, but upon arrival we realized it only ran three times a day — during business hours?! — and had to be scheduled several days in advance. If you’ve ever been to Disney World, you know how ridiculous that sounds. As our defacto travel agent, I was so frustrated, but there was anything to be done about it then. The boys ran across town and got a last minute rental car and we forfeited our rest day to salvage our trip. Instead, we spent the day organizing our rooms, putting away groceries, and exploring the amenities that our own resort* had to offer.
Our stay included free passes to all of the on-site activities, so we squeezed in a beautiful walk, a round of mini-golf and a turn on the paddle boats. The boys even took the kids to an arcade room while the moms enjoyed a very peaceful meal. It wasn’t how we planned to spend our first day, but the kids had a great time and we were all well rested for our first official Disney day.
Since we had dining reservations and fast passes already booked, we kept our original schedule, just plugging Hollywood Studios into our rest day and trying feverishly to book passes for that day. Our first park day was in Animal Kingdom — my favorite! — and the kids were all so excited to get started with our trip.
We started the day at Tusker House for breakfast. I know people have mixed feelings about the food in Disney World, but breakfast is always our favorite and the atmosphere at Tusker House is so much fun. This is the second time we’ve done their character dining and it hasn’t disappointed us yet.
Polly’s first character meeting was with Goofy, which is super fun because that was Ella’s first experience, too!
If you haven’t experienced the juice at a Disney breakfast experience, please add it to your list for next time. It’s some magical blend of orange, guava, and passion fruit and we were fortunate enough to enjoy it twice.
First stop, Kilimanjaro Safari.
This guy was such a champ during our stay. Josh loves rides, but they do not love him. He got a prescription patch to wear during our trip and it did help, but he still sat out on most of the larger rides, knowing from past experience that it would leave him miserable. I always love telling people that he is such a Disney fan, despite not riding many rides. He never minds carting all of the stuff and he’ll gladly tell you that watching the kids have a great day is the very best part. This trip was no exception. I sat out any time he wanted to ride, but most of the time I accompanied the big girls while he posed for pictures with the stroller.
See?
These two girls were amazing our entire stay. You never know how well babies will do in new places, but they were both so relaxed and well behaved. Obviously, they wore their safari themed outfits from Kate Quinn for a day in Animal Kingdom and we got a ton of compliments.
And just in case you’re curious, we think Disney’s Memory Maker is well worth the price to get fabulous family photographs like these. It’s hard to get everyone into the frame when you’re traveling with a group, so we took advantage of as many photo ops as we could!
* My aunt has an annual timeshare that she often lets us use. This is the third time we’ve traveled to Disney World and stayed in one of her properties. As much as we would love to stay on-site, this has been such a great money saving resource for us — especially given that there are so many in our group! Josh and I did decide that we’re going to stay on site for our next trip, which we’ve already started planning. We’re hoping to go back sometime in 2020, since kids three and under are free.
