Day One:
We decided to cut our trip in half. Our home is a 12 hour drive from Orlando and we felt the need to take a rest half way there which just happens to be the Gulf of Mexico.
Slowly we made our way toward Disney World and our room at Riverside. We spent the afternoon exploring and shopping at Downtown Disney and even got a surprise package. Our Elves shipped themselves to our room.
Our first day at the parks was spent at the Magic Kingdom, or as I am prone to calling it, Disney World. By far the most iconic of the parks, it is usually the most crowded as well. My boys were determined to conquer all three "mountains" and generally avoid any "baby" rides this go around. Extra magic hours for those staying on site was at Hollywood Studios that night so when Magic Kingdom shut down, we headed over there for some late night fun.
Our second day found us in reversal of our first. Hollywood Studios was mostly about shows for us since we had hit all the rides the night before. Our very late Magic Kingdom hours were spent riding our favorites from the day before.
During the night C started coughing. In the morning he was running a high temp. Not having a thermometer with me, I guessed it was around 102*. Luckily for us, I had scheduled this day to relax and enjoy some of the other Disney magic with our "extra magic" tickets. C and I stayed in the room where I started running a lower temp, while Lou took the other two boys to Blizzard Beach. With several hours of sleep, ibuprofen and cough syrup, C and I were feeling better and decided since we picked it up at Disney, it was okay to go to Disney. It's a lot of money to sit in a hotel room for a cough....
This was the one day we had our scheduled class for our YES program tickets and while Lou packed the well boys up early, C slept in and eventually (around lunch) woke up fever free and coughing much less. We packed up in the hopes of meeting up in time to catch our lunch reservations and enjoy EPCOT's World Showcase. If we had known the temperature was going to drop into the 50's with a stiff breeze, we may not have gone, but it worked out!
Day Seven:
Animal Kingdom was wonderfully empty on Thursday. We spent almost no time in line all day and even got to enjoy staying after hours to see the last showing of Finding Nemo. We headed back to Downtown Disney for some T-Rex Cafe and Disney Quest.
Our last day dawned with one extra park day looming and no one with enough energy to get out of bed. After lounging for a while we decided to hit Blizzard Beach as a family and then catch the Fantasmic show and the extra magic hours at EPCOT for a last big energy push.
We were so sad to leave our Disney home away from home, but we were all SO tired that I'm not sure we could have taken much more anyway!The boys requested ONE last stop at Disney Quest before we left... At two in the afternoon we finally left and headed toward Atlanta and then spent day ten driving home.
