The Cothren Family: Disney

Warning: there will be a bunch of pictures at the end of this post!

A few months back, we decided that we wanted to have one last getaway as a family of three. We researched some places, but ultimately we decided Disney. Alex is at an age that he could completely enjoy it and I am not too far along in pregnancy that I couldn't handle all the walking :)

We headed down to Orlando early in the morning on December 26. Alex did incredible in the car. He watched a few movies, ate some snacks, played a few games on his Leapster Explorer. To reward him for such great behavior, as soon as we got to our hotel, we dumped off our luggage and went to Downtown Disney (which was right across the street from our hotel). He loved it! There were stores with toys for him to "need", a lego store which absolutely fascinated him and Goofy posing as Santa. We had a great time walking around for an hour or two, but after a long day in the car and knowing that we would have a very early morning going to the Magic Kingdom, we headed back to the hotel. We all fell fast asleep!

On Monday, December 27 we woke up ready to go. We were all so excited to head to the Magic Kingdom. We dressed in our warmest clothes...it was in the low 30's when we started out that morning and the high for the day was only supposed to be in the low 40's. We rode the hotel bus over to the Magic Kingdom.

The minute Alex saw "Mickey Mouse's House" (aka Cinderella's Castle), he lit up with excitement. The first ride we went to was the Buzz Lightyear ride. Alex LOVED it - for the rest of the day he kept telling people he "got Zurg"! We were pretty lucky to hit it at just the right time and we were able to ride it two times in a row. When we got off the second time, Buzz Lightyear himself was standing at the exit to the ride. Alex and Larry ran over and had their picture taken with Buzz! He was so excited.

After Buzz Lightyear we hit up the other things in Tomorrowland. We rode the Astro Orbiter, rode the people mover and looked in a few shops. Shortly after that, we went over and rode the Tea Cups! Again, Alex LOVED it! I was a little afraid he might be scared of them, but our kid without fear loved them and kept wanting to go faster!! After the Tea Cups, we rode Dumbo, It's a Small World, the Winnie the Pooh Ride and Pirates of the Caribbean. We ate a quick lunch in one of the quick dining restaurants and then went to get a spot for the parade. Alex really liked the parade. He got to see most of his favorites and there was even an appearance by Santa at the end of the parade!

Once the parade was over, we headed back to the hotel for a little rest and relaxing. Alex actually took a great nap and it was really nice for me to be able to rest my feet and body a little!

After getting up from our R&R, we decided we would head to EPCOT to ride a few rides and to try to catch their firework and laser show. Once at EPCOT, we rode the "big ball", Nemo and the Figment ride. After grabbing a quick bite to eat and decided how we wanted to waste time until the firework show, we realized that there was a character meeting spot still open and it had Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto for the kids to meet. There was a bit of a wait, but Alex did so great during the wait. He was absolutely THRILLED to meet all of the characters - he had the biggest smile when he saw all of them!

Once we were done meeting characters, we watched the fireworks. They were beautiful. They were a little loud for Alex, so we kept our distance. When the fireworks were over, we boarded the bus back to the hotel. We quickly got Alex to bed and he was asleep within minutes.

Our first day at Disney was everything I had hoped it would be. I saw the amazement in Alex's eyes all day long and felt his excitement all day long!

Here are a ton of pictures from our first day at Disney:

On the "school bus" headed to the Magic Kingdom: