Disney World Vacation 2016

Julian wouldn´t face the camera.....

Day two of our Disney World vacation consisted of heading to our first Disney park at the Magic Kingdom! We had our fast passes, map and plan ready to go! Mimi, Bobby, Dani, the kids and I took

Julian wouldn´t be in the picture.....

a ferry across to the park from the parking lots and it was chillier than it was supposed to be in Orlando in February! The first half of our week was definitely on the cold side and more for us being from Costa Rica. Luckily the excitement and adrenaline carried us through those rough breezy days.




Walking through Main Street America down the center of the Magic Kingdom with the view of the castle at the end was amazing. Of course we had to stop and take a picture with it behind us and of course Julian, 4 years old, is in a NO PICTURE phase of his life. Many of the pictures I got of him where you can see his face, were candids that he didn´t know about. We were headed to the Pirates of the Carribean ride when we passed the Aladin ride with almost no line and still time to spare so we got on it first. Part of our problem with the kids was that every ride they went on and they liked it (which was pretty much all of them), they immediately wanted to go again! So, we did that for the Aladin ride and then headed to the Pirates of the Carribean. I thought it was actually a little on the scary side for Julian but they both loved it and wanted to go again! So we did!

Julian caught me!

Even though we had a "plan" and fastpasses, it was really great to just be walking past a ride and see a short line and say, "Hey! Let´s go get on this one real fast!" The crowds were not too bad really. There were some of the big time rides that we had to wait maybe 40 minutes for but I would say the longest we really waited for a ride was 1 hour and that was Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and I think the Mt. Everest roller coaster in the Animal Kingdom.

Day three was a trip to Epcot that we planned on being a shorter day because we actually got one day free on a promotion they were having for buying a 4-day package. It was better than I thought it would be because I had heard that it wasn´t that great, kind of blah. When we got there I realized that there were really a lot of nice little activities and rides but we hadn´t planned to stay all that long. My brother Scott, his wife Meimi and daughter Shelby were to arrive later that day so we wanted to be home when they got there.



Once we got home, we decided to try out the outdoor heated pool to see just how "heated" it was! It was much warmer than I thought it would be and before we knew it, we were all in the water in early February and loving it! As soon as we got in, Scott arrived and Shelby immediately wanted in too! It was a nice icebreaker for the kids to play in the pool together since they hadn´t seen each other in about 2 1/2 years. They really seemed like they knew each other more then they really do so it was great to see 3 little cousins playing together. It was comfortable while in the warm water but getting out was TOUGH, but worth it!

Day four was a trip to the Magic Kingdom again with Scott and family, Papa, Glee, Dani, the kids and I and even though we weren´t able to stay together on many things based on fastpasses not being the same, it was still an amazing day. After lunch we had a GREAT surprise as we walked out of the restaurant that a huge parade was just getting started!  We got front row seats to a really exciting parade without even planning it or trying too! I really loved it. One thing that I really enjoyed about our Disney experience is that pretty much at every park, we were able to see REALLY neat 3D shows. I´m talking GOOD 3D quality that I haven´t seen in a really long time. There was one with Mickey Mouse in a lot of scenes and I´m not sure if Julian really thought he was real, but he kept calling out, "Miiiickeeeeyy!!.... Miiiiickeeeeyyy!!.... Mickey!!...." Like he wanted Mickey to wave at him or acknowlege him or come sit with him. It was so cute!!! They had special life-like qualities like feeling a real "mist" of wáter on us during a wáter scene or hot air being blown on you when it was a desert scene. It really made you feel like you were there. I was impressed.

 

 

 

 In the next day or so I´ll be sure to post the ending of our trip including The Animal Kingdom experiece and Hollywood Studios!!!

Disney World, Here We Come!

 

So much time has passed and there have been so many things to blog about and it just hasn´t gotten done! oops! Most of my "free" time is when I´m at the store and since I wasn´t in the store from December to mid February, that´s definitely part of my excuse!

So, I´m not sure where to start but I think this should be a post about Disney World! A once in a lifetime trip but hope to do it again in about 10 years with older boys and see how it´s different.

He is REALLY sleeping with that on!

Ready for Takeoff!!!

     
First of all, it´s always an adventure traveling with a non US citizen to the United States (well not always, just in my case). Dani´s name has been on blacklists and he´s endured some interviews in immigration. There was a good span of years where he had residency and they didn´t bother him and he got to go through the line with us. Since he recently gave that up due to the fact he doesn´t live there, this entrance to the country was yet again, annoying. We were waiting for Dani to come through immigration for a LONG time and meanwhile it was getting closer and closer to our next flight departure. Matthew kept saying we were going to miss Disney World and we had to go, we had to go!! I told him we couldn´t leave daddy and that I was sure he would get through in time.....which I wasn´t sure I really believed. Finally when we saw him come through, we took the suitcases and when RUNNING through customs just HOPING we could make it. We ran and we ran and we were all so out of breath and the children could hardly keep up. We arrived to the gate and had just missed the plane pull away....we were SO close! We went  to the airline counter and the next flight out with seats was the next morning. So we started looking for hotels in Houston and found one near malls and restaurants with a shuttle. I should mention it was 7am and we had just gotten off a red-eye and we might have been a little sleep deprived. Turns out Dani had gotten taken aside for questioning but not because of his name on a list like before. This time they wanted to know why he had given up his residency. Hadn´t we just gone through this process at the US Embassy in Costa Rica in order to get his tourist visa for the visit? The answer is "yes, yes we did". BUT they wanted him to do it one more time just to be sure. After waiting in a room with other suspects, they attended him and asked him 2 or 3 questions about it and that was it. ALL THAT, just to barely miss our flight to be with my parents and one day less at Disney.......ahhhhhhh, the joy......

Waiting for over an hour for daddy to come out of immigration!

Within 10 minutes or so the shuttle was there to pick us up and another 10 minutes to the hotel and before the lady even checked us in, she said, "you guys go on in and have the complimentary breakfast, we´ll check you in once you´ve eaten, there´s no hurry." That was so super nice! No reservation, no credit card, no nothing, just sent us on our way to get some coffee and some food and relax after our crazy morning. That day was a bit of a daze since we were a bit tired and thrown off balance by not making the flight and not being with Papa and Glee and Mimi and Bobby whom were already in Orlando waiting for us. We saw a movie, walked around the mall and waited an eternity for the shuttle to come pick us up which was supposed to be at 4pm and it finally arrived after 5pm sometime.....hmmmm, there were some cranky kids for sure. We got to the hotel and were thinking of some kind of restaurant nearby but honestly we didn´t have the energy to go anywhere again. We barely made it to the restaurant downstairs and Matthew had trouble keeping his head off the table until the food arrived. Finally we ate and it tasted pretty darn good and then  both kids made it up to the third floor half asleep and they just crashed. I was even in bed a little after 8pm. We had to leave for the airport at 5ish, so good thing we got a good night´s sleep! We woke up the next day READY for DISNEY WORLD! Our bags had already been checked the day before and we already had our boarding passes so we just showed up and got on the plane! Much easier than the day before for sure!!!

We got to Orlando in the 10 o´clock hour and heading down the escalator towards baggage claim, we saw the grandparents waiting and waving! Nice to finally be there.

At the airport that took us 2 days to get to!!

So happy to be at the ORLANDO airport and not
the HOUSTON airport!

We found our baggage and loaded up the cars and went to the house. Got settled in and headed to Chili´s to eat and then to a place Glee wanted to take us called Gatorland. The kids LOVED it and we did too. It had alligators obviously that were just EVERYWHERE, an area of Flamingos and a parakeet aviariam which was really cool and you could feed them. Also we saw a show with a few different animals and another show about alligator wrestling which was really entertaining too. In the end they did an alligator feeding show which was really cool to watch them jump up to eat meat and whole chickens!



  

I was taking a picture of the flamingos and Matthew
foto bombed it!

 

Looks like I wrote a lot just explaining how we got there so stay turned for part 2 of the Disney World Vacation in the next couple of days!!!