Hey all! I'm Liz, a SAHM/fitness instructor originally from Miami, then from NYC, and now settled in Chicago. Growing up I spent summers visiting the Orlando and Tampa theme parks, so I hate to say it but I'm sort of theme park jaded. BUT so many of my friends have in recent years fallen in deep love with the Disney experience so I am coming into this trip attempting my level best to find the magic that they've found. I also have a family travel blog that I tinker with when I'm in the mood and though I'm two trips behind, I'm hoping I can get some stuff out of this trip that will make a fun future blog post.
Husband (H) doesn't have the best memories of his family trips, so we've been trying to make up for it in recent years. And lemme tell you: he is PUMPED to be going to Disney. He is so giddy by the whole prospect. I'm trying to make this trip really special for him. Which means going all in on whatever experiences we can (without going bankrupt in the process
) I also decided to surprise him with his own custom shirts, care of me and my Brother Scan-n-Cut, which I've tried to keep a secret. Here he is posing with the great and mighty Christmas tree he felled for us:
Baby Girl (BG) is our 2-almost-3 year old. She's seen Moana, shes's seen Frozen annnnnnnd that's about it. Ever since planning this trip I've been trying to introduce her to whatever I can so she's a little more in the Disney-loop. A week before our trip we went to Disney on Ice so she could get a little taste of the other Disney characters, and she had a fantastic time. Here she is clearly taking to the Disney experience like a duck to water!
So that's our merry little band.
Our plan is to split our trip into essentially three sections. Leg one, we are visiting my father to tell him our big news (I'm pregnant! Yay!). He lives about two hours from Orlando, so while we are there we will be also heading with him to Busch Gardens in Tampa to get a full, well-rounded theme park experience . Leg two, we are headed back to Orlando, staying at the Holiday Inn Resort in Lake Buena Vista for a couple of days as we make the rounds visiting all my childhood friends that have moved to Orlando. Finally we will be headed to Disney where we will stay at Jambo House at Animal Kingdom Lodge and visit Epcot and Magic Kingdom. Not a lot of time at the parks, but I figured this would give us our first taste of Disney World as a family.
I've been obsessively checking the Disboards, reading trip reports, and getting all my questions answered by the fine, knowledgable community I've found here. I've got my camera charged and ready, and the fam is eager to get out of this Polar vortex and into the sunshine, already.
So I wrote that intro before we ever left and got so busy I never got the chance to post. Whoops! But now we can get started for real. Yay!!
We left for the airport directly after I taught a spin class, so I was on edge until we got there, I was so certain we would miss our flight. Plus I'm sure I smelled AWESOME, lol! No worries, I was smart and packed a change of clothes in my carry on, so one quick change at O'Hare I was good to go. We traveled on points, so we had a layover, but honestly it was a pretty low-key travel affair. Here's the fam, grabbing breakfast and in good spirits:
We got to Orlando around 6pm and headed out to get our rental car from NextCar which was a loooooong van ride away from MCO. By the time we got the car BG had pulled out everything she needed to fall asleep from all the packed bags. I think she decided since clearly no one was parenting her and getting her to bed, she'd just need to do it herself:
Oh, and we changed her into her shirt to give my father the big news:
Finally we got the car and made the two hour drive to visit my father, where he was suitable surprised and happy (though it took a loooong time for him to process what her shirt meant, lol!). We spent the weekend with him, my stepmom,and my brother. One of my brother's favorite places in the world is Busch Gardens, so obvs I had to make sure we took him there so I could keep my cool older sister status. He's autistic, and I was really impressed with how well they accommodated him there, so shout out to Busch Gardens for that. We watched a couple of the shows. The ice skating one was really impressive. We sat close enough that the skaters sprayed us with ice, which was really, and literally... wait for it... cool. There was less for me to do ride-wise since I'm pregnant, so I stayed with BG while my brother and father took H on some roller coasters. BG saw some kids wander by with their faces painted and ever since last summer when we let her get a full on pink tiger face at the Renaissance Fair she has been just waiting for a chance to do it again. Soooo here I give you my giraffe-princess hybrid of a daughter. Clearly living her best life.
Finally we said good bye and headed back to Orlando, making sure to grab some Chicken Kitchen on the way. Seriously if you're ever in Florida and get the chance, you NEED to have Chicken Kitchen. It is the taste of my high school years growing up in Miami. I've hit that part of pregnancy where I am full of cravings and the one that's been killing me is how much I want Chicken Kitchen all the time. In complete seriousness, even when I'm not pregnant I dream of that curry sauce... so good.
I sent that photo to my sister who also now lives in the midwest and is sadly far from Chicken Kitchens, too. We joked it was so sexy it needed to be heavily censored, lol. Okay, okay, enough about Chicken Kitchen. Onto our first Orlando hotel and our first day at Disney (yay!!)
Hotel the First: Holiday Inn Resort in Lake Buena Vista
I got a good offer for this place on agoda.com and that was pretty much all I was looking for before we spent all our hotel budget on Disney lodgings. It wound up being a really great experience, and I would absolutely rec this place if you're not looking to stay on Disney property. The room was a really good size and for some reason we wound up with two queen beds, but I wasn't mad. I joke with H that we should live like a 50s tv show and get two twins for our bedroom. I just love to stretch out and hog all the pillows and blankets guilt-free. So this suited us fine
The drive to Epcot from here was a handful of minutes, and I think they have a Disney shuttle, but we didn't use it. What we DID take full full full advantage of was the amazing heated pool:
Our first couple days in Orlando we met up with some of my childhood friends and ate at some really great places close to the hotel which I'll just give shout outs to, in case you are looking for places to eat that aren't Disney-related.
Havana's Cafe served up some really good Cuban food, which I was antsy for since we landed in Florida. I'm half Cuban, so it's always important to get my rice and beans quota met every trip we make down south.
Lechon (marinated pork) with moros (white rice and black beans mixed together, though I think at this place they called it arroz congri) and maduros (sweet plantains aka banana)
Fish, with more moros and maduros:
The other place we went that was in the same shopping center was a hot, new Orlando eatery called Susuru, which serves a bunch of appetizers inspired by Japanese street food and some seriously good ramen. I'm not kidding when I say this place is hot. H, BG, and I met up with two people that completely don't know each other, one guy I went to school with and one guy H worked for in Philly, and both of them ran into person after person that they knew while we were there. The vibe is super laid back, the place is decorated with retro toys and kitsch, and even though it was busy it never felt weird to have a toddler there.
Specialty fries with aioli and seaweed:
Ramen with extra egg and maaaaaan were those eggs good!
We also swung by Zaza's New Cuban Diner to pick up some Cuban pastries so that we could have something for quick breakfasts back at the room. Here we got my favorites, pastelitos con queso (that's a pastry with a cream cheese filling) and pastelitos con guava (with the tropical fruit guava). This place is the real deal, even though I was pretty skeptical because they wrap their con queso ones in a strange shape I'd never seen before. Again, super recommend this place if you are looking for non-Disney food in Orlando
Annnnnd I've run out of image space, so I will continue with Disney Day 1 in the next update
We had 8am reservations at Akershus for their Princess Storybook Dining Breakfast, so we hustled out of our hotel and let me tell you BG was NOT having it. She woke up in a weird mood, and I think she was honestly nervous about finally going to Disney World. For weeks I'd heard about nothing else about how she wanted to take an airplane to Disney World and wear her Disney "watch" (aka Disney band) and now that the day was here she was adamant that she didn't want to go. We bribed her with some My Little Pony in the car and hurried over to meet my childhood friend for our breakfast reservations.
BG started to thaw a bit when she finally got through the tapstiles, especially when she realized how much space there was to run around like the little hyper toddler she is
H was tricked out in his first of two Disney shirts and First Visit badge, ready to have the time of his life. I used a sports shirt that was quick-wicking when I made his Disney shirts figuring he could also wear them when he works out, and he said it was one of the smartest decisions I ever made. The day started off mild enough, but it soon went into the 80s and there was much sweating happening. But thanks to the quick-wicking fabric, he was comfortably dry for most of it. So that's my little hot tip. Pun intended.
Since there was close to no one around, we went ahead and took a pregnancy announcement pic while we were at the front. I hemmed and hawed about whether to use it as I wasn't sure if I was ready to go public, but in the end I decided to go for it. I don't look all that pregnant here, and the joke was on me because the week after we got home I popped for real an insane amount, but I think it still turned out to be a really cute to tell all our friends and some family
So now let me introduce the newest member of our cast: my childhood friend who we will call "T". T grew up down the street from me in Miami and moved to Orlando as an adult and is an absolute blast to be around. When I told her we were going to Disney she emailed me- no joke- like a twelve page spread on tips and tricks to get through the parks. She's also pregnant and since she had an OB appointment that day she decided to use it as an excuse to run away to Epcot with us. Later that evening she planned to meet back up with us again, this time with her own toddler, so I knew BG would have that to look forward to if she was still in a mood by then. I'll also throw in that T is deathly allergic to a million foods, so I was worried about Akershus since I saw a note on their menu that they didn't have alternatives for allergies, but she emailed and it turns out that was totally untrue, and she got a kickass looking vegan meal that she said was really tasty.
Thank you! I only wish she'd worn this one longer, it's my fav. But, you'll see, she decided to change into her Elsa costume. Sigh. I sort of miss the days she had fewer opinions, lol!
When last we left our intrepid group, they were headed to their first stop at Epcot: the Princess Storybook Dining Breakfast at Akershus.
Though we had reservations for 8:05am, there was a bit of a wait when we got there. Still, between checking in and being called it was probably no more than fifteen minutes, so it wasn't that big of a deal. As soon as we walked in the doors we were greeted by our first princess of the morning: Belle. Belle was my favorite princess growing up, and while I was hoping BG might get excited since we had watched "Tale As Old As Time" a bunch of times on youtube, she shrank back and was absolutely overcome with shyness. Since we were getting nowhere with her, the photographer suggested we take a family photo, which is how we would up with this treasure with the three adults beaming and the baby clearly wishing she was anywhere else in the world.
By now I was getting a little nervous about how all this was going to go down. BG's mood had soured and she was getting toddler-y with her feelings, keeping her head down on the table and saying "no" to anything we said, even if it wasn't a question and it wasn't directed at her. Greeeeat. I thought some food might cheer her up, and we headed to the buffet which consisted of a bunch of cold foods including fruits, yogurt, breads, and Mickey waffles. I had been looking forward to trying the traditional Norwegian breakfast which included cheeses and fish but being that I was still feeling some of the effects from first trimester I had to stick to safer, blander foods to be sure that morning sickness wouldn't come and get me.
BG refused to eat anything, though she did eat the face off of a Mickey. T said it was the most metal thing she'd ever seen, lol. There was also a platter of hot foods that came our way, including some cheese hash browns that were good enough I pulled pregnancy rank and told H he had to leave them all for me. About that time an announcement came on that the kids should find the nearest princess, that there was going to be a little parade around the room. I asked BG if she wanted to go, but she just put her face back into the table and hid. Oh well.
Finally the big moment came and the first of the princesses came to visit our table. I was nervous, so sure it would be an absolute disaster and I was ready to step in and let the well-meaning cast member know BG just wasn't feeling it. But we got really lucky, the girl who played Cinderella read BG absolutely perfectly. She came down to her level and was really quiet and let BG warm up to her slowly. When BG was ready she held out her hands and BG took them and it wasn't long after that that they were in the sweetest, deepest, most sincere hug.
As I would come to find out, this wasn't the approach most of the face cast members took with BG's shyness. Most of them would babble "in character" but it would come out so fast that it made BG more nervous. I was later so grateful for Cinderella's careful approach because it warmed BG for the rest of the princesses at breakfast and she was eager to give them all hugs when they dropped by.
Snow White came around and was also really great with BG. She gave BG a huge kiss right on her forehead and BG seemed to feel a special kinship with the princess that was wearing the same dress as her.
Finally the time came for another kid parade and this time BG was ready for it. We were lucky that Snow White was our nearest princess. When she went up Snow White took her hand and BG proudly walked around the room with her princess. When she came back to the table, you could just get the sense that she felt like a big kid, especially for being brave enough to walk around without me or her dad with her.
My strategy for getting an early breakfast reservation was that we would be able to hop on the Frozen Ever After ride after without much of a hassle. It would have been BG's first non-carousel ride. While she was nervous I took someone on here's suggestion and found the ride on youtube and for a week leading up to this trip she watched it so that she would know what would be happening on the ride. She knew it like the back of her hand. She could confidently tell me that when Elsa sang "Let it Go" the boat would go backward. She assured me she wouldn't be afraid. In fact, she seemed to be looking forward to it!
So what do you think would happen after all that prep work? That's right, the ride was down. T said it should be up again soon enough, but as we would later come to realize, it was down that entire day. Ugh!
Instead, we headed over to the Elsa and Anna meet and greet. BG insisted she needed to wear her Elsa dress to meet Elsa, so we changed in the bathroom and headed over to Arendelle.
Since Frozen Ever After was down there was a long line to meet Elsa and Anna. Still, there wasn't anything else to do so we got in the line that had a wait time of 70 min. I don't know how long it took, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't 70 mins. BG enjoyed playing with the kids in line, so that was a good distraction. And the longer it took, the more people dropped out so that made the line move up a little quicker.
I enjoyed looking at all the little details as we waited.
Still, as we got closer and closer to the front, it seemed to hit BG that she would be meeting Elsa and Anna. She got quieter and more withdrawn.
It was finally our turn and it... did not go well.
It was meeting Belle all over again. She shrank back and unfortunately Elsa and Anna did the fast talking thing which made BG ever more ill at ease. So this is what we ended up with:
T said we could try again with her little boy when she brought him that evening. He's a Disney World pro and has met Anna and Elsa a bunch of times before, so T thought he would do a good job of showing BG there wasn't anything to be nervous about with the princesses. At this point it was too early for the World Showcase to be open, and Frozen Ever After was still down. BG was acting moody and I was questioning whether this trip was really that good of an idea.
We decided to try some retail therapy and let her pick out a set of ears. She went with these...
...and it seemed to perk her up enough that she was willing to go for a walk with us until we could get into the World Showcase and do what I had been looking forward to most: the FOOD.
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) I also decided to surprise him with his own custom shirts, care of me and my Brother Scan-n-Cut, which I've tried to keep a secret. Here he is posing with the great and mighty Christmas tree he felled for us:
. Leg two, we are headed back to Orlando, staying at the Holiday Inn Resort in Lake Buena Vista for a couple of days as we make the rounds visiting all my childhood friends that have moved to Orlando. Finally we will be headed to Disney where we will stay at Jambo House at Animal Kingdom Lodge and visit Epcot and Magic Kingdom. Not a lot of time at the parks, but I figured this would give us our first taste of Disney World as a family. 
