Magic Kingdom

I grew up in CA, about 2 hours away from Disneyland. We used to go to Disneyland all the time. I remember, back in the day, when we had ticket books and there were only a couple of tickets for the best rides, including the Matterhorn. The rest of the tickets were for kiddie rides. I remember Disneyland long before Space Mountain or Splash Mountain. I remember when it was this totally magical place and, as a kid, there was just no other place like it. I still have a strong connection to Disneyland and all the childhood memories it holds for me. Even after going to Disney World, I still have to say that Disneyland is my favorite.

Magic Kingdom is much like Disneyland. It's laid out about the same and I can find my way around pretty easily. It has most of the same rides as Disneyland.









The best part of Magic Kingdom this visit was watching my son as the skipper of the Jungle Cruise. He was definitely in his element telling corny jokes and trying to make people laugh. I loved seeing him perform again.

One of the highlights was seeing the fireworks display and watching Tinkerbell fly across the night sky. Tinkerbell used to fly across Disneyland when I was a kid. This Tinkerbell was all lit up as she flew above us. I loved the combination of the music, the narration, and the fireworks. The castle lit up in different color combinations and it was gorgeous.

Of course, we went on all of the rides, including Space Mountain and even Splash Mountain (it was cold so I volunteered to stay and watch my youngest son who was too small to ride). We also went on the Haunted Mansion, It's a Small World (my 9-year-old did not enjoy this ride at all), Teacups, Aladdin's Magic Carpet ride, the Tiki Room (my grandma loved this attraction and I always think of her when we go), the Carousel, Peter Pan, Snow white, Dumbo, Pirates, Buzz, and many more.

I think these photos of my youngest on the carousel are absolutely adorable so I'm sharing them. He looks like a little angel.

We had a blast and loved every minute of our trip.

EPCOT: World Showcase

I love this part of EPCOT. It's a big circle with all the countries surrounding a large lake. I'd guess it's over a mile from start to finish. You walk the loop going from country to country.

It's so interesting to visit each place and learn a little about that country. We watched a movie about Canada in a 360 degree/surround theater. It was breathtaking. I had no idea Canada was so beautiful. It made me want to visit.

In order to accommodate the crowds at EPCOT, there are no seats in the theater. Everyone must stand. My daughter assumed this to mean that Canadian theaters have no seats. She asked one of the Canadian workers, "So do Canadian theaters have no seats?"

The worker looked at her and said, "In Canada, we all pull out our sleeping bags, go into the forest, and watch movies on a sheet spread between trees." Then she walked off leaving my daughter to wonder if she were serious. Of course, none of us gave my daughter a hard time for asking that question :).

My son loved showing us Italy because that's where he spent 2 years on his mission. He said Disney did a fantastic job replicating the look of Italy. He said they always have a patron saint that watches over the city.

I loved  eating in Germany--delicious food. We ate a buffet with red cabbage, different meats, German salads, and lots of delectable desserts. I also loved eating at Morocco. Very different food. Some of the kids didn't enjoy it much but they were good sports and ate it anyway.

I must, however, complain about the reservation policy. None of the restaurants wanted to give us reservations because we had 13 people. They gave us such a hard time and we ended up having to wait a long time and/or eating very late at night. I would guess from their reactions and unwillingness to give us reservations that we are the only large group to ever go to Disney World. And, the guy in Italy was just rude about it.









We watched the Candlelight Procession which included a choir singing religious songs and a reading by Susan Lucci of All My Children fame. Beautiful program.

The fireworks display was awesome. Every night at closing EPCOT hosts a fantastic fireworks show including a large replica of the earth that was brought out to the middle of the lake. At the end of the show fire comes out of  the earth.





I also enjoyed going to Norway and learning about the Vikings--some nasty dudes. From what I read, seems like they were Norwegian pirates. This is photo of my daughters with an infamous Norwegian troll.

EPCOT isn't filled with rides, it's more of a learning experience and you can't do it all in one day. We went back a few times to see what we'd missed. Growing up in CA, we went to Disneyland all the time, but EPCOT is like nothing else. It's really an adventure and I'm glad we could take the kids and expose them to it.

EPCOT: Future World

EPCOT is an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, the brainchild of Walt Disney (I learned this in a museum-type area in Hollywood Studios). Unfortunately, Disney never lived to see his dream of EPCOT take place. Fortunately, we can all enjoy it.

I love EPCOT. When you first enter, the whole area is dedicated to the future. One of the coolest features was the design-your-own roller coaster/jet ride/snowmobile. It's a virtual ride. You choose which kind of ride you want from mild to ride. You touch a screen with all the elements of the ride--speed, twists, turns, loops--and the screen tell you if your speed is too slow or too fast for each particular element. You finish your design and then wait until it's your turn to get in the machine. You sit in a chair and a top comes over you with a screen in front of you. You watch the graphics that "create" your ride and the machine mimics going upside down and to the side. It's a large machine, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few years down the road they aren't made small enough to fit in a game room and marketed as the ultimate gaming console. Our ride was pretty fun for a virtual ride.

We also went on Mission to Mars. Oh. My. Goodness. What a ride. Wow. It mimics taking off in a rocket and going to Mars which is accomplished by spinning you around at about 100 mph. You sit in a seat alongside your "crew" in front of a screen. The flight commander tells you all about your mission and then it's time. You start spinning around, similar to a merry-go-round, until you get going so fast you feel weightless. My stomach knew it was getting all dizzy, but it was super cool. I was afraid I'd get barfy, but I didn't and the sensation was very weird but fun. My oldest son enjoyed my reaction.

We were able to experience a simulation of a tornado. Very odd. I kept jumping when anything flew at the screen because it seemed so realistic.

We explored an area dedicated to land. We saw an hydroponic green house that was growing lettuce and all sorts of food. They use what they produce in their restaurants. It was very interesting to see all they were growing. My husband is now researching how we might grow some things this way.

I enjoyed the area dedicated to the seas. There was a cute little ride with Nemo.











I loved seeing all the fish, including sea horses. I love sea horses. Supposedly, they choose mates for life. We watched a sea horse swim over to another one and wrap its tail around the first one as if they were holding hands. So cute!

We also saw a manatee, a dolphin, and lots of fish in the super huge aquarium. My youngest was mesmerized watching all the fish.









We rode the ride that goes up in the big silver ball that's so famous. It's a ride about communications. The "people" looked so realistic. They take your photo while you're riding and then impose your face on cartoon figures in the future, It was pretty funny to watch each of us in the cartoon future world.

We had fun on Test Track which simulates testing vehicles on rough rodes, braking, and driving really fast.

It took us about 5 hours or so to see everything in Future World.

Hollywood Studios

I loved going to Hollywood Studios. Unfortunately, we chose to go on a Saturday so it was pretty busy. Most of the days we were in Disney World is wasn't too busy and our wait time to get on rides was about 10 minutes, but on Saturday there were a lot of people. Since we didn't get to see everything we wanted to, we returned another day.

My very favorite ride at Hollywood Studios is the Rockin' Roller Coaster. It's supposed to be a limo ride an Aerosmith concert (okay, those guys were on the weird side back in the day). You get into the "limo" and stop at a road sign. Then there's a countdown and the coaster takes off 0-60 mph in 2.8 seconds and goes upside down. Totally fun. And Aerosmith's Walk This Way is blasted in the speakers. I LOVED it!

My husband and kids all loved The Tower of Terror, a free-fall ride that makes you feel like your stomach drops out of your body. I'm not a big fan of free-falls. I went on it once and that was good for me, but the rest of the family went on it a few times.

My oldest daughter who is in the UVU Institute Choir and has a beautiful voice wanted to do the American Idol experience. You have to be at least 14 years old and audition acapella. If you make it through the first round you can then perform in front of a live audience who votes for you. If you make it past that, you get to perform in a finale and one of the participants wins an opportunity to audition for the real show. Great opportunity, except my daughter was disqualified because her brother works for Disney (Magic Kingdom). Bummer. I really wanted her to audition. And, yeah, I love to see my kids perform.

This same daughter was chosen to be an extra in the Indiana Jones show. A really cool show with lots of special effects.

The best special effects show was the stunt car show. Wow. Lots of explosions and lots of cars jumping across the stage and even driving backwards, or so it appeared--the car was actually built to look like it was driving backwards. My husband loved this show--a total man's show.

We saw a live performance of Beauty and the Beast and that was fun.

My kids really enjoyed the Muppets in 3-D show. And the backlot tour was fun. and, of course, we saw characters like the Sully and Mike and an Army Man from Toy Story.

We had a great time at Hollywood Studios. My only gripe was that Gone with the Wind wasn't included in the scenes in the Great Movie Ride. I mean, come on, GWTW is the ultimate movie.

Animal Kingdom

I loved visiting Animal Kingdom at Disney World. AK is kind of like a zoo, but so much more.

We saw the most adorable baby gorilla. I tried to get a better photo, but the mama wouldn't cooperate. It was so sweet to watch the mama cradle her baby to her chest and nurse it.

We also saw a baby giraffe and a baby elephant--so cute. We saw lots of animals on the safari ride. My favorite part of the safari ride was how peaceful it was watching the animals. It didn't feel like the rest of the amusement parks. I loved seeing the animals interact.

Of course, we also had to check out the cool roller coaster, Expedition Everest, that includes a scary yeti. You ride the roller coaster up to the top of the mountain (very high in the air I might add) and stop because supposedly the track has been destroyed by the yeti. Then the roller coaster goes backwards. In the dark. And it makes your stomach all flippy-floppy. Then you stop again and see a shadow of the yeti coming to destroy more of the track and then, whoosh, you're speeding down the tracks again. Super fun. One of my favorite rides for sure.

My boys loved the dinosaur ride. The girls thought it was scary. It's similar to the Indiana Jones ride in Disneyland in that you ride in a jeep-like vehicle that simulates rough terrain. You're looking for a dinosaur to take back to the lab and are trying to beat a meteor shower. It's pretty jerky and bumpy (not unlike driving down my long, dirt driveway), but it's fun. The best part is when the dinosaurs jump out at you and your daughters scream. It made me laugh. (Yes, those ducking are my older daughters).

We also saw an amazing Lion King show. Wow, those performers are talented. There were singers, gymnasts, dancers, and characters from Lion King. The "monkeys" did flips and all sorts of gymnastics and they also did some trapeze stunts. Very cool. Other guys danced while wearing stilts. And I'm talking serious dancing, not some pansy stepping from side to side, but incredible dance steps. The singing was beautiful, too. They also had a woman who was dressed as a bird and for part of the show she was lifted into the air by a rope and she "flew" above the stage doing dance moves. I was very impressed.

Animal Kingdom was awesome and we had a great time there.

Super Awesome Trip to Disney World

We were fortunate enough to be able to spend December 1-9 in Florida at Walt Disney World. My son and his wife are doing the Disney college program and wanted us to come out for a visit.

My son is a skipper on the Jungle Cruise and my daughter-in-law works at the World of Disney store at Downtown Disney.

We had such a blast. I think I'll break up my posts so this one isn't so long. My husband and I and 7 of our kids all flew to Denver where we met my two older daughters who flew from Salt Lake to meet us. Together we all flew out to Orlando--a more than 3 hour flight. Our youngest was somewhat of a challenge on the plane, but the rest of the kids were fine (except for my 6-year-old who has the world's smallest bladder and has to use the restroom multiple times. I think Ill ask Santa to give her a bigger bladder for Christmas).

We arrived in Orlando and picked up the 12-passenger van we rented. The lady at the counter wondered if we knew much about vans and that insurance for vans was different than for cars. Um, yeah, we actually own a 15-passenger van.

We rented a house about 10 miles from Disney World. Best. Decision. Ever. Not only was it less than half the cost of hotel rooms, it was big enough that we weren't stepping all over each other. We had 5 bedroom and 4 bathrooms (with so many girls in the same house having that many bathrooms was wonderful compared to what we would've had in a hotel). And, the house was nice. not enough couch room for all of us, but it had a pool table which my 4-year-old loved. It also had a Foosball table and a pool, but we elected not to heat the pool because we figured we wouldn't be there much (and we were right).>

So, I would heartily recommend that if you go to DW, you consider renting a house. It's about the same price as a hotel room--just under $100 a night--but you get lots and lots more room. We also made our breakfast and then packed lunches to try to offset the ridiculously high prices of food on Disney property (that will be another post).