Day One: The Magic Kingdom Part 1

On March 3rd we headed for my favorite of the four parks--The Magic Kingdom. Unfortunately we were just a few minutes late for rope drop due to it being our first day driving around the resort, loading the stroller, etc. We still made it there before the park was packed though, which was nice.

When we crossed under the bridge and I saw Main Street and the castle I immediately started tearing up.  For so long I thought I'd never have a baby of my own to share my love for the magic of Disney with and there I was taking my baby girl for her first stroll down Main Street. It was a very, very thrilling moment.

Ready for her first day at Magic Kingdom

Hazel's first stroll down Main Street

 

We headed back to The New Fantasyland, which is amazing! So many new things to see and do! First on our list was Dumbo!

 

Then we headed over to The Journey of the Little Mermaid--Hazel LOVED this one. So many colors to see!

Me with my nieces, Annabelle and Madeline

Here's The Beast's Castle overlooking the new restaurant, Be Our Guest. I would have loved to try that place out by the line was already insanely long before it even opened! Maybe next time.

On Daddy's Favorite (not really!) "It's a Small World!"





My brother, sister-in-law and Hazel's twin cousins, Sadie and Arthur on "It's a Small World"



Here's The Beast's Castle overlooking the new restaurant, Be Our Guest. I would have loved to try that place out by the line was already insanely long before it even opened! Maybe next time.


 

Gaston's Tavern



Mike gets a little excited on things.

 Now, it was right about this point in the day when I stopped taking pictures because some asshole put an abrupt end to the magic when they stole our stroller! We parked our stroller in stroller parking right near the Haunted Mansion. We were gone probably about 20 minutes, came back and everything was gone. Our stroller, back pack, diaper bag, cooler, everything. I was so upset. I researched for weeks before finding a stroller with a parent facing option to keep Hazel happy since she is used to being worn. I searched high and low for a diaper bag that didn't look like a diaper bag (we actually think this is what tempted the thief--since it looked like we had left a purse on our stroller.) When that diaper bag was too small for cloth I had to find a backpack that would work. I had spread our purchases for this trip over a few months because it's so expensive to buy everything at once (bibs, cooler, new stroller, sun hat, sunscreen, etc. etc.) That's what upset me the most--how long it had taken us to buy everything and how they had essentially stolen from a baby.  Then, when it was cold and Hazel's hands were freezing I got pissed because the asshole had stolen her mittens. Her favorite toys were gone too. It SUCKED. The ONLY saving grace was that we had kept our expensive DSLR with us along with our wallets and phones. There was nothing of monetary value left in the stroller. Still, it was an awful feeling. Thank goodness we had Hazel in the Ergo when we went on the ride or we would have been carrying her everywhere the rest of the day.

 

We filed a report with Disney Security and they encouraged us to file a report with the local police department as well. They tried to tell us that it was probably a case of mistaken identity, that someone had taken our stuff by accident, which was no possible. #1 Our stroller was bright turquoise. And a Bumbleride. I saw literally one other Bumbleride our entire week there and it's pretty hard to mistake a turquoise stroller as your own in the sea of navy and black strollers. #2 It had all our stuff--pink backpack and link toys? No mistaking that as your own. They gave us vouchers for free rental strollers the rest of the week, which was nice but didn't help us at all since their strollers are for bigger kids and Hazel had barely just learned to sit on her own. We were screwed.

 

The kids were hungry so we had some lunch at Pecos Bill. I hardly tasted my food. Mike and I were both so upset. We had received a harsh dose of reality in what was supposed to be the most Magical Place on Earth. I stepped outside to call USAA to see if we'd be covered under our personal property insurance. Since it was a Sunday I had to leave a message with a call service who assured me that a claims adjuster would be in contact with me on Monday. After lunch, one of the awesome parades was starting but we couldn't watch--we had to make a run to Super Target to buy replacement stuff. We were so bummed!

 

 

 

To be continued......

 

 

 

 

 

Disney World: Our Resort

We had a great time a Disney World last week. It was a trip full of memories--some not so good. Like our stroller and all our belongings getting stolen. And when we lost my niece. Yeah, not so much fun. I'll talk about both later. The majority of the rest of the trip was so much fun though! We took a TON of pictures so I may have to break this up into multiple posts, depending on how long Hazel's nap lasts.

Oh, did I not mention that Hazel is currently napping in her crib?! (We sidecarred her crib to my side of the bed.)  This is the second time today. For a baby who has taken 99% of her naps in a carrier or on me this is huge, people! I'm actually having a bit of a hard time with it but Hazel is snoozing away and seems to be loving it.

Anyway, back to Disney.  We live only about 6.5 hours away from Lake Buena Vista so on Saturday the 2nd (my 29th birthday!) we started our drive south. It was a pretty uneventful drive and Hazel was so good. She doesn't seem to hate her car seat so much anymore! We stopped for gas and for fries and malts at a Steak N Shake (yum!) and arrived at our resort about an hour before my sister and brother were due to arrive.  We had the Disney music blasting and I was so excited when we saw this sign:



Hazel already posing.

This was our third trip to Disney World, our first being in 2009 shortly after Mike returned from Iraq. We stayed at the All Star Music Resort that trip and in November 2010 we stayed at the Polynesian and shared a room with my sister's family. This trip we stayed at a new value resort--Disney's Art of Animation. It was bright, fun and considering we didn't spend much time in our rooms at all--a great value.  AofA has mostly family suites that are Finding Nemo, Lion King or Cars themed but there is one section of standard hotel rooms that is Little Mermaid themed--this is where we stayed. My sister stayed in the Lion King Suites and my brother's family stayed one resort over in Pop.


Our room was pretty basic. It was a value resort, after all. Two double beds, one sink, a shower, tv, table and chairs and a dresser with three drawers and a perk--a fridge! We didn't have one of those when we stayed at All Star Music and it was a definite plus.

 

Our Little Mermaid themed room

View from bathroom

Ariel Shower Curtain
 

How awesome is this shower?

Curtain for bathroom privacy.

Another view of our room--there were three drawers on the left and the fridge is on the right.

Flippin' Fins Pool

 

 

 

And now for the Lion King section. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of my sister's suite but the outside area was really cool.

 

 

 

And CARS!

 

 I just realized I didn't walk around the Finding Nemo area too much. All I saw was The Big Blue Pool and the surrounding area. The pool was awesome though--did you know that you can hear music and the characters while swimming under water? So neat. We took Hazel swimming for the first time on our last day there. Unfortunately we were only in the water about 20 minutes because we had a dinner reservation to make but it was still a good time--lots of memories! :)

 



The food court, Landscape of Flavors, had a really great selection of foods and a lot of yummy things that you could buy with your DDP snack credits. One of the benefits of staying on site is Free Disney Transportation. This was the first trip we did not use Disney Transportation at all for our days in the parks. We did use it our first night there to get to Downtown Disney but we didn't have a ton of stuff with us and I just wore Hazel in the Ergo. We drove everywhere the rest of the week because it's a big hassle to take everything out of the stroller to collapse it to get on the buses.  It worked out fine and it was nice not having to stand on a crowded bus or wait in a long line at the end of the day. All in all, Art of Animation was a really nice value resort.  It didn't break the bank, it had really cute themes, the pool was awesome and the food choices were great. I would definitely stay there again.

 

I have a lot more stuff to post about our vacation and as I said earlier in this post I will have to do it in intervals. But if anyone has any questions relating to Disney World, dining, etc. I would love to try to answer them. I love to talk Disney!