Monday, January 3, 2011

December Recap 4: Christmas Day at Disney World

Our Christmas Day started at Magic Kingdom.

This time, we got the double stroller and a special needs pass. We learned the thanks to the American's with Disabilities Act, Sean and 5 of his friends could use a special pass to get into rides more easily at WDW. The pass allowed us to wait for rides in the FastPass lane, rather than the extremely long regular line. Ride operators worked our group into the ride in alternate with people in the regular line. We did still wait a bit, but not nearly as much as the previous day. We were also able to use the stroller as a wheelchair if there was a long line and Sean needed to sit until it was our turn. That said, it was an extremely busy day at Magic Kingdom, we later heard that they had to close the gates at 11 am as it was full to capacity by that time (100,000 people.)

The first thing we saw after getting our pass and stroller was a street parade with some of our favorite characters: Woody, Jessie, Mr Incredible and Frozone. I lifted Sean high up to see everyone and he beamed with excitement and waved so hard! It literally brought tears to my eyes. We worked our way through the crowds towards the castle to find a ride to start with.

First stop was the famous Mad Tea Party tea cup ride! Doug, Aidan, Sean and I rode while Grandma and Grandpa watched with Ella. Sean covered his ears the whole time, but said he liked it. Aidan was disappointed that we wouldn't let him spin the cup too fast.

Next we took Sean and Ella to the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh while Grandma and Aidan rode Dumbo the Flying Elephant.

Doug and I rode the carousel with the three kids, then the six of us went on It's a Small World together.






We had a horribly long wait to get some lunch, then we walked up to the Toontown section. By the time we got there, Ella was sound asleep. The boys explored a bit, then we decided to take the train back to the entrance and go back to the hotel. The kids wanted to swim in the big pool at the resort before we had to leave Orlando.

The kids absolutely loved playing in the resort pool. They had little life jackets so the kids were fearlessly jumping in and going down the water slides.





We had to drive to Okeechobee after that, so we packed up the kids and our things and headed down south aways where we spent the rest of our week. We had cool, windy weather the rest of the week so we didn't get to do as much outdoors as we wanted. It was nice just being lazy and watching movies or playing games with the family. We did take a day trip to hit some fabulous outlet stores in Fort Myers.

Our flight home went fairly well, though we got in late so that made an exhausting day. We were glad to see that we didn't have an ice or snow covered van to clear off at 11 pm.

It was a neat experience, for sure. Disney certainly has a lot more to do than we could take on in a short time with young kids. I hope we can try it again in several years when they are older. I saw so many other things that I'd like to do there.

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