Monday, January 3, 2011

December Recap 3: Christmas Eve at Disney World

We flew to Orlando, FL on Dec. 23rd and went to the Caribbean Beach Resort at WDW that evening. The kids did fairly well traveling there, we had a fully charged dvd player, i-Pod and PSP to keep them occupied. Hey, screen time has it's uses in tight spots! For a change, our kids weren't the loudest on the plane. :)

I didn't take any photos of the resort, but did get some video at the pool on the last day there. The resort was big and comfortable, we had rooms overlooking the beach so the kids got to play in the sand several times. The weather was a lot cooler than it had been when we went to Florida the year before, so that was a bit of a bummer. Still, you can't beat walking around in long sleeve shirts, no bulky down coats, in December!

Christmas Eve Day is my niece's birthday, so we let her choose which park to go to that day. She picked Hollywood Studios. We all met for breakfast then rode the bus to the park together. Sean and Ella loved the bus ride almost as much as the Disney rides and sang Wheels on the Bus the whole way there. We rented a double stroller and headed to the Pixar Section to ride the Toy Story Mania attraction. Given the huge amount of love all the kids, especially Sean, has for Toy Story, we knew that this was a MUST DO event. What a wonderland!






The wait for the ride took around 45 minutes and proved to be very difficult for Ella (she kept wanting to climb all over the displays) and Sean (they had the theme music running rather loudly and Potato Head talked to people.) Once in the ride, they forgot all about it and had so much fun. It didn't take Sean long to figure out how to fire the Buzz Lightyear laser at the targets. He rode in a car with me, Aidan and Grandpa rode in a second car, and Doug, Grandma and Ella rode in the third. Doug earned the highest score, with me in a close second.

Our second stop was to meet Woody and Buzz. When we got in line, the doorman said is was about a 20 minute wait. The kids had fun posing with the photo props, but as we got near the front of the line Sean started wandering ahead to have a look. Grandma followed him up and kept trying to talk him back into our place, but Sean was just mesmerized by his heroes. He just stood there and stared in awe. The Disney photographer talked to Janice and told her that Sean should have a special pass so we didn't have to wait in long lines. She told a co-worker to bring us to the front of the line and let us go next. By the time we got up there, Sean was hand-and-hand with two of his favorite people.








From there we had some lunch, then Grandpa and I took the little two to the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Playset and Doug, Grandma and Aidan went to the Muppets 3D Show. By the time we met up again, Ella was getting very tired and Sean was asking to go home. We decided to take them to see The Cars display and then Grandpa was going to help me get the little two back to the hotel for some nap time/down time. Sean is a huge fan of the movie Cars and would of loved to see them up close. Unfortunately for him, they were automated displays that rev their engines and talked. It was so loud he refused to be on the same side of the street as them, let alone go up close.



Doug, Aidan and Grandma stayed until the park closed at 5:30 but were only able to get to two more attractions: The Rock & Roller Coaster, which scared the beejezus out of Aidan, and the Lights-Motors-Action Stunt Show, which was a huge hit in his eyes! They didn't take the camera with them, though.

We met up together for dinner that evening at the restaurant at the resort and then flopped exhausted into bed.

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