Our Disney Vacation!

Our big vacation of 2012 was a week long trip to Walt Disney World in Florida.  For years, we had been talking about taking Carson to Disney when he was 5 years old.  Then we had Bristol and decided if we waited till Carson was 5 (and Bristol was 1... a.k.a. mobile), it would probably be a difficult trip for Bristol's age.  So we decided to go when Carson was 4 years, 9 months... close enough to 5... and Bristol was 5 months old (a.k.a. not mobile).  Honestly, we couldn't have picked a better age for a first trip to Disney for Carson.  I had heard from many other moms that the 4-5 year age range is the best for the first Disney experience.  And I wholeheartedly agree!  However, I do believe that a trip to Disney will be wonderful at any age, really, but I don't think that any other age is quite as magical as the 4-5 year range.  You won't ever get that fantasy/make-believe/imaginative stage back.  Yes, I'm sure Carson will still be into make-believe and have a great imagination next year and the year after... but it will be different at that point.  So I am SO GLAD we went when we did.  And we cannot wait to go back again.  Even Kevin looks forward to our next trip.  And even though we ourselves thought we may be a little crazy to take an infant to Disney, it really wasn't bad at all.  The first day was a little rough, but otherwise Bristol did great (with the exception of the bus rides) and enjoyed the trip a lot.  She was able to go on the majority of the rides, which was really fun!  She really did enjoy most everything!

Our trip was made even more wonderful because Grandma and Grandpa decided to join us!  We are so happy they did and are so thankful to have such awesome memories with them!  We've taken several trips with different parts of Sara's family, so it was a special treat to get to vacation with some of our Holleboom family.  We hope that we can do more trips in the future, too.

We arrived on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 24th.  We had a direct flight from Flint to Orlando.  Bristol and Carson both did awesome on the flight.  Bristol slept for most of it and was so good - a perfect first flight!  Then we boarded the Magical Express and headed to our resort.  Grandpa and Grandma had spent the day at the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, but they were at the resort when we arrived that evening.  We stayed at a value-priced resort called Pop Century.  We checked into our room and went to dinner with Grandpa and Grandma at the resort dining hall.  We had thought we may make a trip to Downtown Disney after dinner, but we were all pretty tired and decided to call it a night and return to our rooms so that we could get settled and relax a little.

On Sunday, we got up and headed out to the Magic Kingdom for the day.  It was so awesome to see Carson's eyes just light up and a huge smile on his face when we walked onto Main Street U.S.A. and saw Cinderella's Castle.  We arrived just as one of the parades was starting, so we got to see most of Carson's must-see characters right away - Sebastian from the Little Mermaid, Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, and of course, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and Daisy.  There were many other characters, too, but those covered most of Carson's must-sees (other than Gaston).  We rode lots of different rides - the Tea Cups, Peter Pan, Small World, Ariel's Grotto, the Speedway cars, the carousel, and a couple of others, too.  We got to see all of the New Fantasyland that is opening this year (more to come next year and in 2014), as well, which was pretty fun since it wasn't supposed to be open until the following week.  We stayed in the park until they lit up the castle with (as Carson will tell you) 200,000 lights.  :)  It is SO beautiful!!  The pictures just do not do it justice at all.  Seeing Disney World at Christmas is so amazing - I'd highly recommend it to anyone.

On Monday, we got up early so that we could get to the Animal Kingdom before 8:00am for their Extra Magic Hours.  We rode the Safari, did some shopping, looked at lots of different animals, Kevin and Bruce rode Expedition Everest (their "rock on" picture below is one of my favorites from the trip), and we saw the Lion King live show, which is always a great show.  We had a great safari - the trick is to go first thing in the morning when the animals are most active.  We got to see all of the animals, I think.  We even had to wait for a couple of giraffes to move out of the way for a few minutes during the safari.

We left the Animal Kingdom and headed back to the resort to have lunch and relax a little and let the kids take some naps.  Then we headed out to Downtown Disney for the evening.  We met up with Sara's cousin, Kristin, and her husband Joe and two boys, Brody and Brock, for dinner at Wolfgang Puck's.  It was so good to see them!  We haven't seen Joe and Kristin since Kristin was pregnant with Brody... and he'll be three in January!  Thankfully we have the phone, email, text, and facebook, though.  So it doesn't feel like we are so disconnected, at least.  :)

After dinner, we walked around Downtown Disney together and did some browsing in some of the shops and toy stores.  Carson and Brody had so much fun together!  Carson also got to go into the Lego Store with Grandpa, Grandma, and Daddy, which he was SO pumped about!

On Tuesday, we headed to Epcot for a couple of hours.  Grandpa and Kevin wanted to ride Soarin' - but all of the FastPasses were done for the day, so we mostly just walked through the World Showcase and did some shopping.  Then we returned to the hotel to relax and swim in the pool.  This was Bristol's first time swimming.  The water was nice and warm and she really enjoyed it a lot!

After swimming and a quick nap, we grabbed a quick dinner and packed up to go to the Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.  This is a special Christmas event that requires an additional ticket to attend.  It runs from 7pm to midnight.  And it was worth every penny.  They have a special parade that we actually got to see twice.  The first time, we were right on Main Street U.S.A.  The second time, we were blocked by the parade in Adventureland.  The second time is when Carson really got special attention from all of the cast members.  He was thrilled that so many of the princesses waved right at him and blew him kisses.  :)

There is also a special Holiday Wishes show for the Christmas party, which is their light and fireworks show.  It was so cool.  Both kids were just mesmerized and totally loved it!  I have a video of the finale on my phone, but the file is too large to email.  I will plug my phone in and upload it directly soon, though.



It was so nice to just walk right on so many rides, too.  Although we really never experienced terrible wait times for anything during our entire trip.  But it was really perfect during the Christmas party.  We stumbled upon a rare find around 11pm... Woody, Jessie, and Bulleye from Toy Story were partying in one of the taverns with a DJ and lots of kids.  It was so fun!  Woody had some really sweet moves and was a pro at the gangnam style dance!

After our late night on Tuesday, we all slept in on Wednesday.  Then we headed to Hollywood Studios for the day.  Carson decided he wanted to meet Mickey Mouse.  He'd only wanted to see his favorite characters (from a distance) up until this point.  So once we got to Hollywood Studios, we found Mickey and got in line to meet him.  Carson got shy just as we were walking up to meet him and wouldn't stand by him, hug him, give him a high five, or anything.  But we did manage to trick him into some pictures.  :)  Bristol got a kiss from Mickey, though.  :) 

We also saw a Disney Junior show with all of Carson's favorite shows - Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. etc.  We had lunch, then Grandma and Grandpa headed back to the resort to rest.  Kevin, the kids, and I saw a couple of other shows, and then went to see the live musical, Beauty and the Beast, which was so good.  We all loved it!  Then it was time to meet up with Grandma and Grandpa again for the Osborne Family Spectacular of Lights, which is the special Christmas light show at Hollywood Studios.  Again, the kids were just mesmerized.  They were really quite impressive and so beautiful!

On Thursday, we headed to Epcot again.  Everyone but Bristol and I rode Soarin' when we first got there.  We saw some other attractions and shows and mostly walked through the World Showcase.  Epcot is really neat.  It was my first time there.  I loved the World Showcase, with all of the different cultures and countries represented.  I could have spent lots more time there watching the shows and browsing the shops.  The food at Epcot is much better, too.  

We rode the monorail a couple of times while we were there, too.  This was one of Carson's favorite things to do.  He loved the monorail!  So we took one last trip on it when we left Epcot on Thursday.  We decided to run over to Magic Kingdom via monorail so that Carson could ride It's a Small World one last time, which was his favorite ride of all.  

We didn't stay out too late on Thursday since we had to get back to the resort to pack up our things since we were leaving on Friday morning.  We were all sad to leave.  Kevin and I were both excited for the trip ahead of time, but at the same time we were sort of dreading it, too... the chaos of it.  But we had such a wonderful time.  It is both of ours favorite family vacation so far.  It was just so magical, as cliche as that sounds, but its true.  We were not ready to come home at all.  And we could seriously go back again tomorrow.  We'll definitely be making another trip to Disney... and hopefully another and another and another.  We are seriously considering joining the Disney Vacation Club in a year or so, too.  Because honestly, that seems to be the best and most affordable way to do Disney (plus, you can go anywhere in the world if you don't want to go to Disney one year).  But we'll cross that bridge when the time is right.  :)  

I forgot to mention another of Carson's favorite things were the surprise towel animals we'd find when we returned to our room each night... they were pretty cute!   

And those were the highlights of our trip.  Bottom line... we had a fantastic time and are so grateful for the memories that we have made!  We cannot wait to go back!!!  :)