Holy Moly My Baby's Turing TWOodles!!!
Hello everyone!! Thanks for joining! Sorry for the delay in posting, but honestly I needed a while to reflect on this trip (I'm sure you are all aware of why). I have to say, in a lot of ways this was not the trip that I wanted it to be, but expected it to be. And in other ways I was thrilled...my daughter was amazing! She truly loved Disney World, though this was her 4th time going, this one she was aware of how special this place is and her face was lit up the entire time. It was magical just to watch her and her love for this place that means so much to my husband and I grow. Before I start, I want to let you know that I am going to do my best to report how everything went down on this vacation, but again I don't want to post pictures of those traveling with us, since I want to keep it honest and I don't want them put on blast
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Now, the moment you've all been wait for, THE MAIN EVENT!
Travel Day!
I woke up a little earlier than I normally do for work around 5am, I usually get up around 5:30 and I got myself dressed and put my final carry on items in my bag. The night before I decorated in front of Gigi's bedroom so that it would be all set for when we got her up in the morning. I had my husband get up and we got ready to record her reaction...it was pure joy and excitement. Really, how adorable is this...
The only bad part was, I still had to work a half day
so the plan was, my husband and I would load Gigi in the car, drop he off at my parents (they live a mile from us and watch her while we are at work all day, so this was nothing different except that we were both in the car because normally my husband just takes her himself since he has a more flexible work schedule and does not have to be there nearly as early as I do). Then he would drive me to work (its a 45 minute commute), head home, wrap up a few emails and some last minute items I left for him, pick Gigi back up around 11:30am, drive the mile over to his mom's house, pick her up and then head back to get me. The school I teach at is only about 15 minutes from the airport so this works out nicely. There was only one snag in our plan...when we dropped Gigi off, she melted down because she thought we were going to Disney World without her
. My poor parents had to calm her down because we were in a rush at this point. Other than that everything worked out perfectly and we were checked in at Southwest in no time
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We had a little extra time once we arrived so we grabbed a bite to eat and relaxed for about 40 minutes before boarding. As far as a the flight went, it was super easy. 2 hours as we arrived about 20 minutes early. Gigi did an amazing job! Lots of coloring and playing matching games and reading books. Definitely thankful she's so well behaved.
Before long we were in line for the Magical Express, where Gigi could not believe that Mickey's face was everywhere she looked. Talk about a happy little girl. By 6:45 we were loaded on the bus and taking our traditional Magic band picture...to me this means we're home
It took about 50 minutes to make it to the DVC villas in Kidani since there were several stops prior to ours...and poor Gigi was starting to get antsy, which I didn't blame her for, this was our longest trip on the Magical Express. But she still wasn't bad at all. We were being welcomed home just before 8pm and walked into a room where my MIL had had a nice tote bag and birthday crown wait for Gigi. It was super thoughtful and I was so hopeful at this point that the trip was off to an amazing start. Until my MIL started to freak out because there was supposed to be a balloon along with the gift and there wasn't
. To me this was not a big deal because it wasn't anything that couldn't be handled, but to her it was a travesty. I thanked her over and over and let her know that I would help her contact Disney later, we had an 8:10pm ADR at Sanaa to check in to.
We walked the short distance down the steps and we quickly greeted at the podium. I asked if there was any way we could have a savannah view and she said she would give us a pager and if we got tired of waiting just come back and let them know that we were good to be seated anywhere. We went outside and spent some time around the fire, talking to cast members and spotting animals, it was dusk and they had night vision goggles they were bringing out. Super cool! But instead of enjoying with us, my MIL is yelling at someone on the phone about the balloon. This was super annoying to me...here we are after all of that traveling trying to relax and take in our first moments in this beautiful place and all you could think about is that you paid for a balloon, so you need a balloon now
. Oh well, that's on her for missing out.
After about 10 minutes though we were hungry and tired and ready to just eat so we checked back in and let them know that any table would be fine. Within maybe 5 minutes we were seated at a nice table that backed up to the glass viewing the savannah but it was now too dark to see out
figures. Each adult started off with a alcoholic beverage, because ummmm it's vacation. I cant remember what everyone else got but I chose their Moscow Mule and it was great! Very refreshing. I also ordered bread service for the table, so that everyone could partake in the yumminess that is carbs and dips! after bread service is when things started to break down a bit...see at home my child takes a two hour afternoon nap and is in bed around 7:30 pm each night. Due to travel time, neither one of these things happened and she was just over everything. I think honestly she was hungry and tired and didn't want to be in a highchair at this point. I ordered her and I a New York Strip to spilt, since steak is her favorite and I was hoping that that would help. It was late and dinner definitely took awhile to come out, so I let her sit on my lap and did the best I could to entertain her and keep her afloat. But as soon as we were done eating, I showed the server our AP's on my
MDE account and asked her to apply our discount and had Tom settle the bill while I took her back to the room to get a bath and head to bed. So sorry for the lack of pictures on this post. It was a long day and wrangling a tired almost two year old at a nice dinner trumps food pics
. Within 30 minutes I had Gigi bathed, had our groceries delivered, gave her a cup of warm milk, put her pack-n-play sheets together and had her snoring. Meal while I unpacked a little and got myself organized and showered because I too was ready for bed! Tomorrow we were heading to rope drop at AK and so we needed to be up and out the door by 8:15 at the latest...I'm not sure that everyone was able to grasp my sense of urgency