Disney World - Day 1

Last week we took the girls to Disney World to celebrate their birthdays.  We have been saving on and off for the trip for over a year and we have always told the girls that they would be going for their 5th and 3rd birthdays.  For the last year Emma Catherine has told everyone that "when I turn 5, I'm going to Disney World."  To say that we were all very excited is an understatement.  As a disclaimer, I am going to go through our week day by day because I really want all the memories recorded.  It was a fabulous week with great weather, low crowds, and lots of fun.

I worked really hard on the planning of the trip and Ryan thought maybe I went overboard, but in the end, we were all glad with the planning.  One great thing was that we were able to go during the free dining plan promotion so we were able to go to a different character meal each day.  I think that the meals really made the trip.  Also, I planned in advance which parks we would go to each day and I used touring plans to even help plan the order of the rides.  As an FYI touring plans is a great website that gives the crowd levels per day and also gives plans for each park on each day to give you the least amount of wait time on each ride.  They also have an app that is constantly updated with the actual wait times for each ride in the park.  We used it the whole time. 

We actually left for Disney World late on Friday afternoon.  We had already reserved a hotel in Tallahassee, where we spent the night.  The next morning we woke up and drove to our Disney resort, Pop Century.  We got there around 3ish, checked in and went straight to our room. Once we put our suitcases in the room, we headed to the buses to go to Epcot.  One thing that we loved about staying on property was the we didn't have to drive our car all week.  We took the Disney buses everywhere we went.  Since we were going to be doing at least one other full day at Epcot we decided to use the afternoon to try and see some of the characters and the world showcase part of the park.  As we wandered back there, we saw Test Track and Ryan wanted to go on it at some point so he went ahead and got fast passes for all of us.  We headed to China to see Mulan first because her meet and greet time was coming up first.  We wandered around China a little bit because we weren't sure where she would be.  Finally I asked a CM (cast member) where she would be and as we were just getting to the at spot, Mulan appeared and we were 2nd in line.  

Next we headed to meet Sleeping Beauty, Bailey's favorite princess.  Once again we were standing around trying to figure out where she would be and she appeared.  I pointed her out to the girls as she walked by and told them to follow her.  She heard me and said, "I'll take them with me."  Bailey jumped out of the stroller and walked hand in hand with her.  Emma Catherine acted more shy and didn't get out of the stroller for awhile.  

By the time they got to her spot, Emma Catherine had caught up and Sleeping Beauty spent time talking to them and taking pictures.  She was so sweet to them.

Since we were already in the area we decided to get in line to see Belle and the Beast.  Bailey was not sure about the Beast and wanted to stay away from him.

Next I thought the girls might want to ride a ride so we went to find the Finding Nemo ride.  They thought it was fun and we told them they would be able to ride it again another day.

It was time to use our fast passes for Test Track so we headed over there.  Emma Catherine wasn't sure if she wanted to ride but at the last minute decided to go head.  She and I rode it first and she loved it.  We had gotten a rider swap since Bailey wasn't tall enough, so Ryan took her again when it was his turn.  By the time we all rode, it was dinner time.  We ate and then headed back to our hotel to get a good night's sleep.

**In a lot of the pictures the girls are wearing birthday buttons that they gave us when we checked in.  Everywhere we went CMs said happy birthday to them and the loved all the attention!

**Also, we used the Disney photo pass photographers to take a lot of pictures, especially pictures of our whole family.  We had pre-ordered the photo pass CD because it was cheaper to do ahead of time.  I am still editing the pictures so I don't have the CD yet.  That is why there won't be any family pictures on our Disney recap.  I wanted to go ahead and write the recap because I didn't want to forget the details.  Maybe once I get the CD, I'll just do a Disney family picture post.