Our pilgrimage to Disney World Orlando

Almost 37 years later, I made a pilgrimage to Disney with my own children, after I had visited the park as a kid. This time we also had Grandma and Grandpa with us. It was a fun time, a tiring time, but a memorable time.

As magical as Disney World is, they do make it quite a journey to actually get to the park. This must be the first ingredient Disney puts towards creating the magic!  First, you maneuver the many lanes of freeways, to get to the park. YAY! We found Disney World!

But, wait, there is still a lot of road ahead! Alas, we see signs for the parking lots. Oh wow! There are miles of parking lots!!!

It was well worth getting our park tickets through AMA. With our purchase of a 3 Day Pass, we got Diamond Parking Passes, not no extra cost! WOHOO! We also arrived SUPER early.

Now, you walk to the "transportation hub", to then either choose the monorail or paddle boat to get to the actual Disney World! How come no one ever mentions this when they talk about this trip!?

Our family chose the monorail and we were off! We actually got there for the opening of the park which is a show in and of itself. It was exciting to be there and see all the highly anticipated magic which was cleverly started back on the freeway when we saw the sign for "Disney World"!

And we were off! This way!

Here are the top sights which we LOVED, or think are worth checking out if you visit.

The Tea Cup Ride - Yes! You can get quite nauseous on this one.

The Speedway- We lined up for this one, very excited about racing a car. The kids LOVED driving. However, at the end of the day, it is more of a put - put race. :)

Tom Sawyer Island - This was great, and there was lots of shade! It was definitely quieter too. The kids had fun exploring the caves and the underground tunnel.Plus you take this raft to cross the river!

Turkey Legs / Pretzels - We are "that family" who does not buy food at parks but do eat a large breakfast before we go. For lunch we usually pack our own. However, for the three days at Disney we had decided to just buy a little, light lunch to share and have a few snack and water bottles packed instead. One day, we feasted, as a family of four on just one Turkey leg, and one Mickey Mouse head pretzel! YUMMERS!

 It's A Small World- This was Max's pick as his favorite ride at Disney. Too cute! I have to admit, we did go on it a few times. It was lovely, relaxing, and a quieter place to be... The kids were really amazed by all the different children from around the world and all the cool ways they were presented. It is an oldie but a goodie. I think I still have "that song" in my head though!!! Betcha you do too now!




 The Characters - Back when I was visiting Disney as a 7 year old, you had to walk around and look for the characters and then push through crowds to get a photo op. I do believe we have one of my brother and I with Goofy and you can just see my head and only the top of Corey's. There were just that many kids around. Nowadays, you LINE up to see the characters, who are not all in the same place.... ugh! Thankfully Amyah is not Princess crazy. So we found a line that was not a long wait if you got express passes. Grandma, myself and Amyah did meet Snow White and Rapunzel. We really wanted to see Tinker Bell and her fairy friends but the wait was more then 30 minutes. Amyah had put a time limit on how long she was willing to wait - smart girl!

Tomorrowland - A very cool look in to the future from a 60's perspective! I kind of felt like we were in the time of the Jetson's.  Space Mountain is the highlight there and Chris and Amyah were on it  A LOT! The rest of us nearly did not survive the first ride on it! I guess we all thought it would be tamer then it was. The fact that it is all in darkness only adds to the "thrill"! I don't know who looked greener, Max or Grandpa!

Cooling off in a mister.

Rocket Ship Ride up high!

Cooling off on the "People Mover" monorail around Tomorrowland. It was also a great place to rest ones feet.

What Space Mountain coaster looks like with the lights on as they do maintenance.

Jungle Cruise - I remember this one too, from when I was a kid. The attraction simulates a riverboat cruise down rivers of Asia, Africa and South America. You are on board a tramp steamer, and voyage past audio-animatronic jungle animals. Our drivers, both times :) were full of a funny/ slap stick comedy routine as they "guided" us through the jungle. Another, nostalgic ride at Disney and not to miss!

Jungle warriors

 A new version of the Jungle Tour is at the Animal Kingdom park. It has live animals and was created to appear as a safari might be around Kilomangaro. It was enjoyable and you saw lots of animals. Again, how it was created and how it looks so real is amazing.
                                        

 ALL of Disney Animal Kingdom was my favorite! Tree of Life,  and overall entrance is lovely and lush and perfect for a hotter day. This is the one park I would return to, if we ever ventured back to Disney.

Here is the Expedition Everest Roller Coaster which we went on numerous times. It never goes upside down which is why I found myself on it various times. (ALL of us - Gramps, Gran, Max and Mommy included! - also liked the Big Thunder Mountain Railway roller coaster at the main park in Frontier Land. )
                                      

Tree of Life - saw the best 4D show there!

Max and Amyah signed up for a scavenger hunt to collect stickers around the park.

Kali River Rapids -If you need a cooling off, check out this ride! Some how, Chris and Gramps picked the "dry seats". Poor Grandma looks like she actually got dumped in the river! All in good fun and a great ride.

                                                                                  
Swiss Family Robinson's Treehouse and Pirates! We visited Disney World on Halloween! The kids dressed up as pirates. (And yes, we did go on the pirate ride but it is not too memorable)  Although you can buy an extra ticket to stay late and trick or treat, we opted to have a chocolate hunt back at the condo. The kids enjoyed dressing up and it was a memorable Halloween. As Amyah said, the best part really was that they didn't have to put a snowsuit under their costume!

I LOVED the Swiss Family Robinson show when I was a kid. I wanted to live in a treehouse just like theirs too. It was fun to wander around this treehouse. I think though I enjoyed it the most out of my family though :)

Here are some other sights that filled the days, which were pretty busy as is. They are large parks and really there are not a lot of rides. There are restaurants, shops and then buildings which are part of the scenes. You have to walk A LOT to get to all the rides. I had made a plan as to where to start and what to head to later on and which rides to get fast passes too. The extra reading and planning paid off a bit. 

Chris taking target practice in Frontierland with Max helping him find the targets.

Exhausted at the end of the day Max had to be wheeled a ways down the parking lot! We all secretly wished we could be wheeled to the car, but the youngest got first dibs.

Each of the kids had $20 to spend on whatever they chose for the entire trip. Max was waiting patiently for the Space Centre. Amyah set her sights on this beauty of a hat! She has woren it a total of ONE time to school for crazy hat day! ;)

After a busy week of sight seeing at the parks, look where we hung out on the last day! Refreshing and fun, was the condo pool and water park! We needed to rest up for the journey down to Miami to board the Norwegian Epic Cruise Ship! Planning a cruise after a week in Orlando is the way to go!