This year we decided to finally do a big Disney World vacation during spring break. It was no easy decision since it is so stinking expensive but we knew the kids would love it. We like to call it the "Phil Brown Disney Trip" since we kind of earmarked some of the money we got when John's dad died for something like this. Of course we had to make a detour for Legoland and we decided to make that our first stop. I feel bad because in an effort to save some money we got a rental car from a location that was supposed to be convenient to get to from the resort, but it was not and poor John got stuck in crazy shuttle lines and it took him forever to return it. Oops lesson learned.
Legoland was amazing and I am glad we went now before EZ gets much older because it was the perfect park for all of our kids but I could see it not being as fun once you are a teenager. Of course all of the Lego sculptures were a big hit. I thought King would love to be in this picture with the characters from the Lego movie, but unfortunately he fell multiple times before we even got into the park, so he got off to a rocky start. The poor kid is just our little klutz. He warmed up though once he got to buy his Mixel lego toy.
I have mixed feelings about Lego Friends and how overly girly they are, but Netta loves them so we had to get a pic with one of the girls. The only actual human characters in the whole park.
No special story about this pic except that I love that it looks like Netta is taking a dump.
One of the big highlights of the day was the Driver's Ed program where you got a driver's license after you finished the ride. EZ was very attached to that little piece of paper.
My favorite part of the park was the "play here while your parents wait in line" pens. Those people are geniuses. It's a lot easier to deal with the crowds when your kids are entertained with Legos.
Towards the end of the day, Conrad and I got to have some bonding time in the little kid area while the older ones rode some of the bigger rides with John. It's silly but I was so impressed with the nursing room they had there that I had to take a picture. This place really knows how to take care of families.
Our second day was spent at Hollywood Studios. Here we learned the benefits of having a "baby" with us who couldn't ride a lot of the rides and of selecting our fast passes weeks ago. Because we chose early we were able to get fast passes to all the big rides, so John would go on with the 3 older kids and I would wait with Conrad. We never had to wait long and then he would come back with an "I have a baby pass" for me which would allow me to get in the fast pass line with 3 other people, so all 3 kids could ride again if they wanted. They got really spoiled on this trip because people were waiting up to 2 hours sometimes for those rides. Unfortunately, today was also the day we learned that just because King is tall enough to ride the ride, doesn't mean he should. I think he almost had a heart attack on the Tower of Terror. That one actually even had EZ shaking in the line when we went back to ride it again. Netta however was unfazed. She will ride anything.
John has been talking up the turkey legs for quite some time and EZ was SO exited to get to try one. His first initiation into manhood.
EZ was also a big fan of Hollywood Studios because of the Star Wars ride and the chance to make his own light saber. Of course he had to make a double one which is 6 feet long. I am amazed that he hasn't broken anything at our house yet.
Our third day was spent at Animal Kingdom. I have a love hate relationship with his park. It has probably my two favorite rides, but also was frickin impossible to navigate and it took forever to get around. The Yeti roller coaster was my favorite coaster of all the parks and for some reason the Lion King show brought me to tears and I don't even really like that movie. They had a petting zoo, which was ok, but it got a lot hotter that day and it started to get to us.
After the petting zoo you could go instead and do a scavenger hunt around the animal center. King wanted nothing to do with that. Luckily, we brought plenty of electronics on the trip for these very moments.
We learned another trick about the fast passes that day. If there was a big ride that King didn't want to go on, we would use his fast pass and mine to go on something else and then John would take the older 2 on the big ride and I would again use the baby pass so I could go on and take the kids again. Then King and I would use our extra fast passes for a different big, but not too big ride and we would come out and have a baby pass for John, EZ and Netta. Basically, it let us have 4 fast pass rides instead of the allotted 3 a day. I was so proud of myself for figuring this out, but then we used our 4th fast pass on this dinosaur ride that absolutely terrified King and EZ. Maybe even more than Tower of Terror. Oops.
Oh and our final lesson learned was never eat at the Rain Forest Cafe. The food is insanely expensive and not that great. We were just so hungry at the end of the day that we couldn't handle the thought of riding the shuttle home and then fighting the crowds for dinner at our resort. We really loved the trip but pretty much every meal was a headache except for Epcot, but that is for another post.
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