Disney Day One

Doing this from memory a week later, I really prefer doing it day to day as it's happening but we were so tired every night I just wanted to crash. Hopefully the photos will refresh my memory! Thanks to my mom and dad for taking us on such a great trip to celebrate their 40th anniversary and to my sister for all her advance planning and plotting!

TIP(S) OF THE DAY:
You can bring your own food and drinks into the park. We brought water, juice boxes, snacks, and pb&j sandwiches in with us everyday. This saves money.

Take a photo of the back of your tickets and photo pass. If you lose them, they can reissue them at no cost using these photos and the numbers on the back of the ticket!

Decide what you really want to go on and FastPass for it first thing. Only one person needs to go get the FastPass but they have to have all the tickets.

Opt for the PhotoPass! My sister paid for ours online before we left. Any place there is a photographer in the park, they'll take your photo and give you a card that you can carry with you and give to all the other photographers you may encounter. After you connect all the cards online, you can get all your photos on a CD for around 100 dollars, which beats 20 dollars for one picture!

Take a photo of your parking area or text the name of it to yourself. This is helpful when you leave 6-7 hours later.

We left for Disney World on Sunday morning at 7:30 am. We had stayed the night at my in-law's and my mom and dad came over with the two cars to load up and caravan to Orlando. After saying goodbye to Nonnie and Poppa, we hit the road. Trey was wide awake and VERY excited. He was watching a DVD in the car but still kept asking if we were there yet. Coming into Celebration, we started seeing some signs of Disney...mickey tension wires in the sky, billboards, and of course the individual park signs! My sister and I had been texting back and forth all morning and we were jealous of the texted pictures of my niece and nephew's Mickey waffles. Trey could not wait to see his cousins and could not believe that they had beat him to Disney World!

We pulled into the Wilderness Lodge parking lot, got everything unloaded and checked in.





Because we got our tickets through AAA, we had a separate room key and ticket. We took pictures of the back of the tickets with our phones in case they got lost. When we checked in, they informed us they would text me when our rooms were ready. When you stay on property, they give you a parking tag for your car that allows you to park on any of the other Disney resorts or parks, which was nice, because we drove to most of the parks. We piled into two cars and took off for the Animal Kingdom!

It was about 85º and very sunny. The park was packed, although the way Animal Kingdom is set up it seems very crowded because the walkways are narrow and there are a lot of trees. My husband and brother in law grabbed everyone's tickets and went off to FastPass for the Kilimanjaro Safari. First stop for us, Dinoland, where the kids met Pluto and Goofy (my sister brought autograph books and pens for everyone and they were a hit!), went on the Triceratop Spin (Dinosaur version of Dumbo), and played in the Boneyard.





From there we headed to the Finding Nemo show. It is play with live actors working puppets and was very good, although it is the same story if you have seen the movie. It was nice to sit down in the cool dark space for a few minutes and the kids loved the show. It was time for the Kilimanjaro Safari! On the brisk walk over there, we grabbed a corn dog for Trey and my mom and I split a (very good) turkey focaccia sandwich. Because of the FastPass we waited about 5 minutes. The safari was a blast and because my mom and dad just got back from a trip to Africa it was fun to look at the animals with them! We saw giraffe, elephants (including a baby!), rhinos, hippos, crocodiles, and more.





On to lunch for my sister and her family with tag a long Trey. My mom, dad, brad, and I went over for the Tusker House to grab a beer, which was my dad's favorite in Africa. In fact, Brad was wearing his Tusker House shirt my parents brought him back from Tanzania. There were some African drummers outside the bar area and the kids had a blast shaking their booties to the music.





We managed to catch the parade at a great spot. It was so colorful and very upbeat!





After the parade, we headed to the Character Trail Area in Camp Minnie Mickey while my BIL, Dad, and Brad headed off to Expedition Everest. The kids met Donald and Thumper and then we managed to catch The Lion King show, where the guys met up with us. The Lion King show has singers, acrobats, dancing, arials, and animatronics and was amazing!



At this point, we were done so we headed back to the Wilderness Lodge, unpacked our stuff, and hit the pool with the kids. We had a grab and go dinner at the Roaring Fork and hit the hay for the night....we were headed to Hollywood Studios and Epcot the next day!