On the 2nd day of our trip to Disney World we started our free dining package.  The free dining didn’t start until the 2nd day we were there so in order to qualify for it we had to check out that morning and then check back in under our package.  I had done online check in for this but I still had to wait a very long time.  The regular check in line was even longer than the online check in, so it still saved us time.  I think a lot of people had done the same thing we had and all needed to re-check in first thing in the morning.  There weren’t very many cast members checking people in so apparently they didn’t realize how many people would be doing this.  After waiting for probably 45 minutes we finally got re-checked in.

My little princess waiting for the bus to pick us up to take us to Epcot.

We had an 8:20 breakfast reservation at Akershus, so we arrived in the park before it was open.

Hailey and me (24 weeks pregnant).

My beautiful little miss

We arrived at Akershus and there was no wait.  Even though we always have a reservation we have always had to wait in the past.  This time we got right in.

Hailey and Belle

Hailey and Sleeping Beauty

Hailey during a parade around the restaurant

After the parade, Sleeping Beauty helped Hailey find her way back to our table.

Hailey and Cinderella

Hailey and Snow White

Hailey and Ariel.  Hailey asked Ariel if she is able to turn back into a mermaid so that she can visit her dad and her sisters in the water.  Ariel told her that she can change back and forth any time she wants to to visit.  Hailey also sent a hug to Flounder.

Ariel during another parade around the restaurant.

Hailey parading

Having fun seeing all the princesses!

Our breakfast at Akershus was really good.  I always love eating breakfast there and they have food that Hailey will eat, so that’s a definite plus!  It’s not Rich’s favorite place to eat, but he puts up with it so Hailey can see the princesses.

After breakfast we were off to find some rides.  Hailey decided that she wanted to go on Test Track.  She tried it last year and was scared because it was too fast.  But she decided she was ready to try it again this year.

Us, on our way to Test Track

So pretty

Rich grabbed some fast passes for Test Track to use later and since it was early and the line was short they decided to ride it right away (I couldn’t ride since I’m pregnant).

The princess in line for Test Track.

I think she looks a little bit nervous.

All ready to go!  Definitely looking nervous now.

I think she’s having fun now!

Looking very happy!  And she loved Test Track!

Next up we rode Soarin’.  The wait was short and we got right on.

In line for Soarin’.  We all loved Soarin’, although all of us feel dizzy during the part where you fly over the city.  We just close our eyes during that part and we enjoy the rest of the ride.  When we got off it was time for us to get another fast pass, so we got fast passes to ride Soarin’ again later.

Next we rode the Living With the Land boat ride.  I always find this to be really interesting.  But Hailey was complaining it was making her feel sick.  When we went through the part where the greenhouses are it’s pretty warm and that was the part that made Hailey feel sick.

We found a Hidden Mickey on Living With the Land!

Next we went to one of Hailey’s favorite rides from last year.  She stopped to pose with Dori and Nemo before we rode.

Ready to ride the Nemo ride.

After we rode Nemo, we had to stop and see Bruce.  Hailey is doing her mad/scary face.

Hailey

Some of the fish in the aquarium

We went to see Turtle Talk with Crush.  I am always amazed by this show.  I can’t figure out how they do it!  Hailey sat on the floor during the show and raised her hand to ask Crush a question, but she didn’t get picked.  She was disappointed that she didn’t get picked and had planned to ask Crush where all of his friends were.

Rich grabbed more fast passes for Test Track and then Rich and Hailey rode it again using their fast passes from that morning.  She really loved it!

Since we have never ridden on Mission Space (we aren’t big on the whole spinning thing!) we never realized that this fun Space Base comes after the ride.  So we decided to check it out for the first time.

Hailey loved it!  Here’s a few pictures of what it looks like:

She didn’t want to come down.

We got to meet Mickey and Minnie at the Character Spot.  Hailey asked Mickey if was ever going to marry Minnie.  It was so funny!  Minnie gave her a high five for asking and Mickey kept putting his hand up to his ear like he couldn’t hear what Hailey was saying.

Us with Mickey and Minnie

We were a little bit hungry at this point so we stopped for a snack at the Promenade.  Hailey had a cinnamon sugar pretzel.  But I’m not sure who had more- Hailey or her new friend:

He would not leave us alone after Hailey decided to share some of her pretzel with him.

Hailey with Duffy

Next we rode the Gran Fiesta Tour Boat ride.

Then it was time for a little nap.  We went into one of the innoventions buildings and Hailey (and Rich) slept for a little while.  Sometimes Hailey will take a little nap, but it doesn’t happen very often.  We don’t like to go back to our hotel for naps because it takes so much time out of the day by walking to buses, waiting for the bus, riding the bus, walking to our room, trying to settle Hailey down for a nap, etc.  So we let her take a nap in her stroller in the park rather than waste all that time.

After nap time we went to Club Cool to sample some free soda from around the world.  My favorites are from Costa Rica, Mexico and China.

Next we went to see Ellen’s Energy Adventure.  I thought it might be a bit boring to Hailey because it’s long, but she absolutely loved it!

We ate dinner at Sunshine Seasons… it seemed like there was less of a selection than the last time we were there.  Our food was delicious, but Hailey’s brownie had a hair in it.  Yuck!  We were given a new one, but still- yuck!

After dinner we used our fast passes for Soarin’.

Rich and Hailey went on Test Track again using their fast passes from earlier.  While they rode I went and got our free pictures from the Character Spot photo opportunity earlier in the day.  It rained pretty hard while I was getting our pictures but only for a few minutes.

Magic Kingdom had extra magic hours that night so it was time to head over there.  We took the monorail over and it took a long time.  Since I’m pregnant I assumed that someone would let me sit… but that was not the case.  There was one guy who was sitting down and he looked right at me, then laid his head down on his wife’s shoulder and acted like he was sleeping.  So rude!  And then the monorail in front of us was having mechanical problems so we had to wait a long time on the track.

Finally at Magic Kingdom!

First up Hailey wanted to ride Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin

Yay!  We captured Zurg!!

Next we went on Stitch’s Great Escape.

Then we went to see Mickey’s Philharmagic.  Hailey had been asking to go to this allllll day long, she remembered how much she liked it last year.

Next we went on the Haunted Mansion.

Hailey had to try to pull the sword from the stone before we left.

A couple of castle pictures on our way out:

By the time we got back to our hotel, filled our mugs up and got to our room and in bed it was midnight.  A long, but very fun first day!

Hailey’s favorites for the day- ride: Test Track at Epcot and Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin at Magic Kingdom.  Favorite character: Minnie Mouse

Back at the end of August we went on a trip to Disney World.  We took lots of pictures while we were there (over 3200!) so it’s taking me some time to go through them and figure out what I want to share.  Here is the first day of our vacation:

We woke Hailey up around 6am and told her there was a surprise for her in the living room (she had no idea we were going to Disney World).  So she got right up to go see.

Opening her surprise box.

Reading the sign on her balloon that says, “We are going to Disney World.”  She seemed pretty shocked at first and didn’t know what to say.  When she realized we were leaving in a couple of hours she got very excited and ran to give me and Rich and big hug and said “Thank you so much!”

Other things inside the box included a new DVD (The Fox and the Hound) a new game for her MobiGo (Tangled), 2 autograph books that I made for the trip and a new shirt to wear.

The first autograph book I made for Hailey to take on our trip.

The other autograph book.

Hailey all ready to head to the airport, wearing her new shirt that says, “I’m going to the Walt Disney World Resort.”

Hailey and Rich on the airplane.  The flight went better than last years did.  Hailey complained she felt sick but she didn’t actually get sick this time.

Yay!  At the airport in Orlando!

We went to catch our bus to our resort and didn’t have to wait at all.  There weren’t very many people in line, which we were told was because of Hurricane Irene and a lot of people not able to come.  We were very fortunate to make it when we did as we were one of the last flights to leave from our connecting airport to go to Orlando.

Hailey happy to be on the Magical Express… but that smile didn’t last the whole trip.  When we got  to our first stop (Caribbean Beach) to let people off Hailey begged to get off the bus because she was feeling sick.  We couldn’t get off there and as soon as pulled out of the resort Hailey got sick  Fortunately she felt better after that and we were pretty close to our resort anyways.

Pulling in to our resort- Pop Century.  We stayed there last year and really liked it.  We spend such a small amount of time in our room that we have liked staying at the value resorts in the past to save money.  But I think after this year we are going to be staying away from the value resorts.  We had an amazing time but there were a lot of things that bothered us this year.

Hailey loved playing with the big legos while Rich waited to get our suitcases off of Magical Express.

She had a little time to hula hoop too.

Hailey enjoyed playing in the kids room while I checked us in.  I had done online check in before we got there, so it only took a few minutes for me to check in.

Off to find our room

After we got settled into our room we went to the food court to have some dinner.  Hailey enjoyed a yummy pizza.

Then we checked out the Everything Pop gift shop.

Hailey decided she wanted a Lotso teddy bear from the gift shop.  She’s posing in front of Lady, one of the huge icons that was near our room.

Hailey and Lotso in front of Tramp.

After a long day of traveling it was nice to just relax at the pool.

Hailey loved swimming in the pool!

A view of the main pool at Pop Century.

We were tired from our long day so we headed off to bed knowing that day 2 would be an early morning.

It seemed like we had just arrived, but it was already time to go home

Hailey was sooooo sad that we had to leave her flower balloon there.  She wanted to bring it home to show Grandma and Pa.  So I told her we’d take a picture of it and she could show them in the picture.

I took a few more pictures of Pop Century before we left.

The lobby

Hailey enjoying her last breakfast in Disney.

Hailey posing in front of Tramp in the 1950s section.

Hailey and Lady in the 1950s section

The bowling pin shaped pool in the 1950s section.

Mrs. Potato Head, Hailey and Mr. Potato Head

The rubik’s cube in the 1980s section.

Hailey standing on the keyboard in the 1980s section.

Walkman, also in the 1980s.

A view of the pool that is next to the giant keyboard in the 1980s.  The laptop is part of the 1990s section.

Hailey running around on the giant keyboard.

Rich and Hailey playing a game of Twister before we had to leave.

The saddest sight in Disney World

On the bus on our way back to the airport.

Hailey playing with her new Little Mermaid figurines while waiting for our airplane.

In the car on the way home.

Hailey’s favorites of the trip: Ride- Peter Pan and Nemo, Character- Ariel

We had an amazing trip!!  We can’t wait to go back!!

Our trip went by super fast and day 8 was our last day to go to the parks.  We had an early breakfast reservation at the Crystal Palace so we headed to Magic Kingdom bright and early.

We’ve never seen a “rope drop” before, which is basically the opening ceremony at the park, so we decided we wanted to see it.

We had a pretty good spot to see the opening show.  We loved it!!

Then it was time for breakfast.

Tigger signing an autograph for Hailey.

Piglet and Hailey

Pooh and Hailey

One last birthday celebration in Disney World.

A big hug for Eeyore.  Hailey asked Eeyore why he was always so sad.  He pointed to his stomach, so I guess that means his tummy hurts.

I love the colorful character topiary when you first enter the Crystal Palace, so I had to take some pictures on our way out:

Pooh

Eeyore

Piglet

Tigger

Since it was our last day we went off to ride on Hailey’s favorite rides again.

We started in Adventureland

First up we went on the Magic Carpet Ride since it broke when we were sitting on it waiting to ride on day 7.

We rode on the Jungle Cruise and then Hailey played in the water for a little while.

Hailey and her “opera glasses” at Mickey’s PhilharMagic

Hailey and Buzz

And one last attempt at pulling the sword from the stone:

And she pulled it out!  I love the look on her face!!  It was actually pretty heavy so Rich and had to help her pull it all the way up.

Rich and Hailey waiting to go on Hailey’s favorite ride- Peter Pan

Hailey on her favorite ride

Walt Disney and Mickey

Me and Hailey on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin

Hailey was so excited to get to pose with the captured Zurg.  She had remembered from 2009 that he was at the end of the ride and had been asking repeatedly to see him.  Earlier in the week he was covered up so we were glad she got to see him on our last day.

We rode Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin again and I got my highest score ever.  Never mind that we got stuck in the one of the rooms and I was able to keep shooting.  But after we got unstuck I wasn’t able to shoot for the rest of the game, so it all evens out (except that I usually get a very low score).

We stopped for one last pose by the castle before going to see the parade.

I’m not sure how we managed to miss the Celebrate a Dream Come True parade all week, but we did.  But we were excited to get to see it.

And then it started to pour.  I can’t complain though because this was the only day it rained at all during our entire trip.  We actually had amazing weather, it wasn’t even humid until about the 7th day.  But I was disappointed that it had to pour just as the parade was starting.  Rich took a few pictures from under his poncho but they cut the parade really short.

Minnie and Mickey

Fairy Godmother with Cinderella and Prince Charming

After the parade we went over to Epcot to enjoy Extra Magic Hours on our final night.

We started out in Innoventions West and played “Where’s the Fire?”  Then Hailey got to practice getting out of the house if there was a fire.

Then we went over to Innoventions East and did Storm Struck, played in the Test the Limits lab and then we played Don’t Waste It.

Hailey pushing our garbage truck in Don’t Waste It.

Then we had some delicious dinner at the Sunshine Season Grill.  It was raining again and we were wet.  When you’re wet and in the air conditioning it is sooooo freezing.  We decided to just do a few more things- so we went to the Imagination Pavilion and rode on the Journey into Imagination with Figment.  Then we had to finish up with Hailey’s favorite ride at Epcot- Nemo.  Afterwards we went to Turtle Talk and then decided to head back to our hotel.

On our way out of the park.

When we got back to our hotel we played at the arcade for a little while and then we were off to bed.

Hailey’s favorites of the day: ride- Peter Pan and Nemo, character- Buzz Lightyear.  Her favorite thing that happened- when she pulled the sword from the stone.