At Christmastime, my brother, Steve, and his wife Sheila shared that they planned to take their kids to Disney World for the first time this summer. Sheila had a conference to attend in Orlando the first week of June, and they wanted to go as a family. They asked if we'd like to join them, and of course we said yes!! We flew to Orlando the day after school ended, and stayed in a 3-bedroom suite with Steve, Sheila, Meera, and Rowan at The Holiday Inn Resort. The kids were thrilled to have sleepovers every night and start the mornings together!
We spent our first day at Disney's Magic Kingdom, and had a blast! Steve had been to Disney many years ago, but it was the first time for the rest of their family. Everything was novel to them, like the Monorail that takes you to the park.
Waiting for our first "ride" of the day - the Monorail!
Our first view of the castle from Main Street
Riding the carousel
Waiting in the very long line to ride Peter Pan. We stopped to pose with Nana the Dog and Hallie's backwards foot.
While waiting in all the lines, we started a funny face-making contest. Here are the top contestants from the weekend.
Meera's spooky blacklight face
Rowan's crazy-eyed face
Hallie's Incredible Hulk face
Aaaand, we have a winner, Ladies and Gentlemen!
Emma's completely terrifying in this photo ... why am I laughing?
We took much nicer photos with Cinderella
And Elena of Avalor
Rowan skipped the princess meet-and-greet, but he loved the spinning Teacup ride. Steve really enjoys spinning rides, too, as you can tell.
We all rode the iconic Dumbo ride, and took a nice, air-conditioned break in the indoor playground area that's midway through the line.
The kids used all their muscles and tried to pull the sword from the stone.
Hallie swears that she got the sword to move, but no one was crowned King or Queen of England that day.
We rode the cars at Tomorrowland Speedway multiple times.
Hallie's ready for her license now!
Since we didn't have enough adults to ride with all the kids, Meera and Emma partnered up. They rode it twice in a row so they each had a chance to drive. Just a preview of their teenage years.
Rowan loved this ride the most, I think!
From the Speedway, we got a nice view of the new Tron Lightcycle Run ride in the background.
We had to get an appointment on a virtual queue to ride Tron. Rowan wasn't tall enough to ride, so Dan and I took the three girls. It's a cutting-edge ride - you sit strapped to a motorcycle as you speed around a steeply curved track high in the air. Emma and Meera were very nervous before the ride. Hallie was *barely* tall enough to ride, and I'm not going to lie, I spent the first couple of minutes freaking out about her possibly falling off!! Hallie was absolutely fearless and had the biggest grin on her face the entire ride!
The girls LOVED it and begged to ride Tron again, but we could only do it once. Funny story: Meera was so nervous before she got on the ride that she suddenly felt like she HAD to go to the bathroom just before it was our turn to ride. I told her that she'd have to wait 5 more minutes until after the ride, and as soon as we got off, I asked if she needed to rush to the bathroom. She said, "No, I don't need to go anymore," and I thought she had peed on the motorcycle!! She didn't, thankfully.
These girls had the very best day together. They're all rollercoaster junkies!
We ended the night with the Magic Kingdom's spectacular fireworks show. Nobody does it like Disney!
After an 11-hour day of walking and standing, the kids literally hugged our car at the end of the night.
Dan didn't want to miss the fun, but he had to be at work on Monday. So, after our Magic Kingdom day, he slept 4 hours at the hotel, took an Uber to the airport at o'dark-thirty, and flew back to Virginia so he could go to work. Mercy!
The rest of us spent most of the day at Epcot on Monday. None of us had quite the stamina that we had the previous day, so we took it a little bit more slowly.
The kids did a great job waiting in a long line for Soarin' Around the World. We kept telling Meera and Rowan that it would be worth it, and Meera completely agreed after she had ridden it! Rowan also enjoyed it, but he was mad that it didn't last longer.
We rode The Seas with Nemo and Friends, and afterwards we spent time in the ocean-themed play area and aquarium. Tragically, Rowan got eaten by Bruce the Shark.
While we waited in line, the kids got to watch Winnie the Pooh try to catch butterflies. He was terrible at it.
The kids enjoyed Journey into Imagination and meeting Figment the mischievous dragon. At the end of the ride, there was another interactive play area, and Sheila got to meet Joy from "Inside Out".
There was a Botanical Garden theme at Epcot, and they had cute bush statues of Disney characters, like Donald and Daisy in the background.
They also had a butterfly pavilion, and each of the girls got to hold butterflies.
We were hot and tired that afternoon, and decided to take a break from Epcot to eat pizza and swim at the waterpark at our resort hotel.
The girls spent almost an hour sliding down the waterslides!
Rowan just wanted to swim, and Sheila and Hallie spent some time in the pool with him.
We made it back to Epcot that night just in time for our virtual queue appointment for the brand-new Guardians of the Galaxy ride. Unfortunately, the ride shut down and it took about an hour and a half for us to get on the ride. It's a unique ride since the rollercoaster has cars that spin independently as you fly through Galaxy scenes that are projected on the walls and ceiling. We sat down in line and waited until it was finally running again, and we all LOVED the ride - except for Steve, who wished he could jump off as soon as it started spinning! We really wanted to ride some other Epcot rides, but the park was closed by the time we finally rode Guardians of the Galaxy.
The very next morning, we flew back home. It was a whirlwind trip, packed with tons of fun!
