We're FINALLY Off to Disney World!!

After months and months of planning, anticipating, and dreaming, we left on Friday, September 19 for Disney World! We got the van all packed up and picked up a very excited Micah early from school...and then we were on our way (well, after a quick stop at Best Buy to purchase a digital video recorder). We drove about 8 hours on Friday, making a stop near St. Augustine, FL. Then, after a quick breakfast, we drove the remaining 2 hours to Orlando...and DISNEY WORLD!

We checked into our resort, the All-Star Movies (ASMo) on Disney property, and received our park and meal passes. Our itinerary was well thought-out, and our destination for Day #1 was The Magic Kingdom (MK) ... Because we HAD to see Cinderella's Castle (especially Emma).

As a side note, since this was our family's first trip to "The World", we wanted to make sure we planned very carefully. We joined an incredible website called "Tour Guide Mike" (www.tourguidemike.com). This had been recommended to us by some friends of ours. I would, in turn, recommend it highly to anyone. Using the information on this website, we were able to know what parks to avoid on certain days, what order to plan our rides to minimize wait time, where to eat, etc. Consequently, our days at the various parks were incredibly smooth. And, do you want to know how long was the longest we waited in line? Probably 25 minutes...and that was because of a fluke on Disney's part. On average, we walked onto most rides...maybe waiting 5-10 minutes at the longest...And, that's incredible...I mean, we're talking Disney here!

Ok, so back to our first day. We utilized the shuttle bus from our resort and headed over to MK.

Here's our first official picture at Disney World.
The kids posing next to the Walt man, himself!

And, as we travelled further up Main Street.

Emma's legs, as you can see, were already getting tired. :-)

Saturday was sort of our "free" day at MK. We knew we had 2 full days coming up later in the week where we would follow more of an "official" itinerary. But, we were surprised at how many rides we were able to go on (top picks: Thunder Mountain Railroad and Buzz Lightyear). We also saw the "Dreams" parade in the afternoon (a great way to see all the Disney characters), explored Tom Sawyer's Island (it is so "natural" and secluded, you kind of forget you're at Disney World), and strolled through Toon Town.

For supper, we ate at Chef Mickey's, which ended up being our favorite Character Meal that week. The food was yummy (for both adults and kids), and the characters were very personable and a lot of fun! Micah and Emma had their autograph books ready and waiting for the characters to sign, which was a nice keepsake to bring home from our trip.

Here's our Minnie meeing the real Minnie...

But of course...We need a picture with the Head Chef!

Our tired characters heading back to the shuttle bus.

Because we had arrived mid-morning to our resort, our room had not been ready for us. So, after our meal at Chef Mickey's we headed back to ASMo to get settled in. When we arrived in our room, our "Mousekeeper" had made a "flower" arrangement out of pipecleaners and washcloths, and there was a Mickey on our bed made out of towels. Cute, cute!