Day 1 - Animal Kingdom

Our first day in a Disney park started out early as we wanted to make it to Animal Kingdom before rope drop.  For those of you not familiar with the lingo, "rope drop" is what time you are allowed into the park.  It's a pretty important part of touring effectively, as there are way less crowds early in the morning, which translates into no lines at the attractions.  So despite the fact that AK didn't open until 9:00, we walked off our bus (the Disney bus that transported us from our resort to the park) at 8:15.  Which means we were first in our line and ready to hit the ground running!

I've already posted all of these pictures on facebook, but I really want to record details of our trip, so that I can come back and see what we need to do differently next time.  And so we can remember the details - the good, the bad, and the ugly ones!

Which means, we technically need to back track to the previous evening when Marshall's neck suddenly stiffened up and started spasming.  He was in an incredible amount of pain and could barely move.  When he got out of the shower the next morning (bright and early so we could make rope drop at AK), he was in so much pain he told me he didn't think he could even go.  Um, WHAT?!  He loaded up on ibuprofen, wrapped a beach towel around his neck for support, and we googled urgent care facilities.  Since they didn't open for several hours, the plan was to go ahead to AK and then once the urgent care opened, if he was still in this much pain, we would adjust our plans accordingly.  Not exactly how I envisioned our first day of vacation, but I'm learning to roll with the punches!  

SPOILER ALERT:  He felt better enough that we did not have to go to urgent care and at some point late in the afternoon of day 2, his neck stopped the spasms, and while it was sore the whole trip, he was finally able to move without wincing.  Prayers answered!

Back to day 1 - waiting in line for the bus to pick us up and begin the magic!

We rented the most awesome double stroller ever.  If I could go back in time to the point when I needed a double stroller, I would have dropped big bucks on this one.  It was easier to push around than our single, which I think is a pretty nice stroller.  Best decision ever!

I already said we disembarked our bus at 8:15 and headed to the front of the line, since there was no line when we got there.  Our awesome friends, Dave & Kari, met up with us shortly after and when they started letting people into the park we headed straight to Kilimanjaro Safaris.  All of the kids LOVED this and Anna even said this was her favorite thing at the end of the day.

Once we finished up there, we went all the way across the park to ride Expedition Everest.  Our first group of riders walked right on.  Kari and Jack rode together, and I rode with Anna, while the men stayed back with the short kids.  Anna really didn't have time to process what we were doing because there was no line, so by the time we got there they put us right on a train.  She was pretty nervous and it turns out she really HATED it!  Oops, Mom fail!  After that ride, I took Anna, Sam, & Lucy over to play in the Boneyard (a fossil themed playground) while everyone else rode Everest again.

Once we met back up, Kari, Jack, and I rode Dinosaur while everyone else played.  It was pretty cheesy and so dark that I couldn't even tell what I was supposed to be scared of.  Jack hated this on our last trip but for some reason said he wanted to ride it again.  Turns out he still hates it!  Notice he's looking down and his eyes are closed in the picture.

We met back up again and everyone rode Triceratops Spin.  This was a big hit for the little kids and so we rode again while Jack rode Primeval Whirl (the roller coaster right next door that everyone else was too short to ride) - twice.

 Our "plan" said to go meet Mickey & Minnie next, but on the way out, we saw Pluto and Goofy and just had to stop for pictures.  See, already I'm rolling with the punches!  Lucy was beside herself with excitement the whole time we waited in line.  I had to continually remind her that there were others in line before us, and after each group went she would ask, "Now Mama?  Is it my turn now?"  It was pretty precious seeing her reaction to everything.

She's giving Pluto five and in the next one she's blowing him a kiss!

Next up, Mickey & Minnie.  At this point we are a little behind my schedule so we waited in line about 20 minutes, snacking on goldfish while we waited.  Totally worth it!  Lucy would not stop bouncing.  Minnie Mouse is by far her favorite, so she was giddy just at the sight of her.  This meet & greet was different from the last one in that you couldn't see the characters until you were next in line, so she walked around the corner and squealed with delight.

This picture is so blurry because of her bouncing with excitement.

At this point, we could have grabbed a super quick bite to eat and head to the Finding Nemo show, but we decided to ditch the show for now and try to see it later when we had more time (we never did make it back to see it, maybe next time).  Good decision, because eating at a quick service is never quick, even with only a couple people in line.  We ended up at Yak & Yeti and even found a table in the shade (thank you Dave & Kari).  This is where having extra hands was a HUGE help in making our trip less stressful.  They would sit down with the kids and entertain them while Marshall and I ordered and waited on food for the crew.

As a side note, I grabbed a picture of these two with Expedition Everest in the background since these kiddos were the only ones tall enough to concur it.

After lunch we split up again:  Dave, Marshall, and Jack back to Everest, while the rest of us went to meet characters, specifically, Pocahontas.   Once we go to her line we were told she had gone on a canoe ride and wouldn't be back until 2:20.  Bummer, but since I'm so good at rolling with the punches, we just moved on to Baloo and King Louie.

Next up was Donald Duck, and we got there just in time to see him walking away to take a five minute break.  Worked out pretty well for us since the guys met up with us while we waited and Jack was able to get in the picture.

Chip and Dale were also on break so Jack wanted to go meet Baloo and King Louie.

After a potty break we ended up sitting around Guitar Dan while waiting for everyone to finish up.  He struck up a conversation with the kids and eventually started singing a song about Jack, Anna, Sam, & Lucy from South Carolina.  It was pretty entertaining and the kids thought it was cool.  I will try to add the link to the video if I can figure out how.

After that little diddy, we watched the Festival of the Lion King show.  At this point, I knew Lucy was exhausted, as this was nap time, but I thought she would be mesmerized by the show.  She liked it at first, but started to get cranky during the slow songs and kept kicking her feet into the back of the person in front of us.  The more I tried to keep her from doing that the madder she got!  She yelled out a few times, but thankfully the show was pretty loud and we made it out just in time.  We had planned to see Pocahontas but at this point the line was long from everyone leaving the Lion King show.  We were hot and in the sun and Anna declared she didn't want to wait in line.  Fine by me, we got a snack instead.

This was the first time we tried using our dining plan and it wouldn't work using our Magicbands.  We ended up charging it to the room (that part of the magicbands worked) and figured we would look into it when we got back to the resort.

SPOILER ALERT:  it took a LONG time to work that out!

After snacks we decided to do a little shopping in the air conditioning!  Jack tried on the hat below, but ended up saving his money to spend later in the week.  Lucy chose a Minnie Mouse dressed as Tinker Bell, Sam chose a stuffed Pluto, and Anna bought a baby Marie swaddled in a blanket.

We had planned to head out whenever we got tired since this was only day 1.  Jack begged to ride Everest again, so I took the other three kids back to play in the Boneyard while everyone else went back to try and catch that Yeti. 

But first, a picture.  The only one we have of all 8 of us from the whole trip and Lucy has Minnie Mouse in her face!

 Anna would dig here all day.  I think it helped that it's not real sand, but very tiny rocks, which were really cool (temperature wise), and there were giant fans circulating air in there.

Since there were no lines, the others rode Everest twice (that makes a total of 5 rides for Jack!) and then grabbed a spot for us to watch the parade before heading out.  As you can see, we are making ourselves quite at home while waiting.  See that beach towel on Sam?  That was Marshall's neck brace earlier in the day.  Thankfully he was feeling much better by this point and Sam used it as covers instead!

The parade was cute but I think we were all ready to leave at that point.  The plan was to have dinner back at our resort and then let the kids swim before heading to bed.

Quick service dinners at our resort (or the one across the bridge that we checked out on day 2) are my least favorite memory of the whole trip!  We were always tired and the kids wanted to run around and it always stressed me out.  Once we finally decided on food, we went to pay, and the dining plan wouldn't work again.  At this point I was tired and cranky and just wanted to eat!  They put it in manually and after dinner we headed to the font desk to check on the problem.  20-30 minutes later they "thought" they had it figured out.  The kids went swimming for a bit before we called it a night....for them. 

We still had trouble with our Magicbands, but the details are fuzzy at this point.  Marshall spent a lot of time down at the front desk.  We really wanted to make sure everything was working before the next morning.  In the end, they got it all worked out, but after about two hours collectively waiting.  This was my only complaint about the Magicbands, and once it got all worked out, we loved having them.

Next up, Hollywood Studios!